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Through Europe on the Eve of War 



A Record of Personal Experiences; Including 
an Account of the First World Conference 
of The Churches for International Peace 



FREDERICK LYNCH. DJ 



S'jcretarv ot TV'-' Charcli I'eace L'n 



Through Europe on the Eve of War 



A Record of Personal Experiences; Including 
an Account of the First World Conference 
■of The Churches for International Peace 



FREDERICK LYNCH, D.D. 

Secretary of The Church Peace Union 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE CHURCH PEACE UNION 

70 Fifth Avenue, New York 

1914 



DS2,| 



"By Tranaffei' 

FEB 20!-' ^5 






DEDICATED TO ANDREW CARNEGIE 

Whose Munificence and Whose Unfailing Certitude that 

Religion and Goodwill Are One 

Made Possible 

The First World Conference of the Churches 

for International Peace 



Through Europe on the Eve of War 

A Record of Personal Experiences ; Including an Account 

of the First World Conference of The Churches 

for International Peace 

CHAPTER I. 
THE FIRST FRUITS OF THE WAR 

On Saturday morning, August 1st, at three o'clock. Dr. 
Charles S. Macfarland, Secretary of the Federal Council 
of Churches, and I were sleeping soundly in one of the 
comfortable compartments of the cars belonging to the 
International Sleeping Car Company, when we were 
suddenly seized by the shoulders by the guard and shaken 
out of our deep slumbers. "Get out as fast as you can," 
he said. "The Germans have blown up the track on the 
frontier just ahead of us and seized three French engines, 
and the quicker we get out of this the better." This 
was our first taste of war! 

Not altogether our first personal touch with it, though. 
For on the preceding evening we had witnessed heart- 
breaking scenes, and we had been in Paris three days and 
had observed conditions on the streets and in the cafes. 
But the most pathetic scene of all was that in the Care 
de I'Est. Our train was to leave at 9:15 Friday evening 
for Basel. We imagined that there would be a crowd, 
for the German Government had sent out an order that 
day for every German to get out of Paris immediately. 
This was one of those ominous things that made all 
Europe begin to distrust Germany, even when she was 



2 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

talking peace. When we reached the station, an hour 
before train time, the scene was most pitiable. The 
whole place was packed and jammed with a great mob 
of poor Germans fleeing from Paris. One could hardly 
pick his way through the confused mass of men, women, 
children and baggage. There were no porters to help, 
and the fathers and mothers were trying to carry all 
their baggage and babies together, while the poor little 
tots who could barely creep had to get on as best they 
could. 

After we had found our compartment we had three- 
quarters of an hour to spare. We walked back to the 
station to see and to help — and to learn how horrible 
even the preludes of war are. We helped where *we 
could. It was a fine sight to see Dr. Macfarland lugging 
little, fat, screaming German babies under his arms and 
dumping them through car windows into their mothers' 
laps. Each mother had probably carried the babies and 
several pieces of baggage as well. It should be said at 
just this point that, contrary to the attitude of the 
soldiers later on, the French porters and guards showed 
every kindness to these fleeing Germans. They had prob- 
ably never before in all their lives worked so hard, nor 
amid such confusion, but they were patient, and gentle 
toward the women and children, carried piles of baggage 
to the compartments, with no hope of the inevitable fee, 
and in several instances I saw these Frenchmen patting 
the little German boys on the head when they were 
screaming with fright at the confused and strange pro- 
ceedings. 

This was the first fruits of war. In this great mob 
• — many of whom had to sit on their baggage all night 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 3 

long as train after train was made up, while the children 
slept on the cold stone floors — were mothers who had 
to get up from beds of child-birth and carry babies one 
and two weeks old. There were many mothers carrying 
little children who were ill with all sorts of diseases, 
and to whom that night's exposure meant certain death. 
There were many invalids who were — it was a pitiable 
sight — trying to drag themselves along to their cars with 
canes and crutches. There were old men and women 
who could hardly crawl trying to reach the train and 
take some little treasures from their homes. Those who 
could not walk at all had to be carried, as the babies and 
baggage were carried, in whatever arms could be found. 
They were dumped into trains so crowded that there 
was no chance for either the sick or the children to lie 
down. 

Most of these families had nice little homes in Paris, 
and were on the friendliest terms with their neighbors. 
The men were, for the most part, artisans and skilled 
workmen. We talked with one of these men, who was 
afterwards dumped out with us at Petit Croix at three 
o'clock the following morning. He was very fond of his 
French fellow-workingmen, and was evidently popular 
with them. He belonged to the same union. When the 
telegram came for him to flee from Paris immediately, he 
took his two tow-headed boys of five and two, got to- 
gether what few belongings he and his wife could carry 
in their hands, and turned over the res: of their propei'ty 
to the care of a French fellow-zvorkingman, who shed 
tears when they left and promised to take all care of their 
possessions. "And in a few weeks you will be trying to 
kill each other?" we asked. He simply shrugged his 



4 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

shoulders in reply. Perhaps right here lies the chief 
hope for ultimate eradication of war in Europe. 
These two men had no quarrel. They were fellow- 
workingmen, comrades, warmest friends. They had one 
common interest in life. They sipped their coffee to- 
gether in each other's homes ; they went together to the 
same meetings of the Social Democracy; they and their 
wives and children went picnicking together at St. Ger- 
main on Sunday afternoons. But at a command from 
some one they have never seen ; from a government 
that has probably done nothing but oppress them; for 
a cause of which they have never heard, they must take 
positions on opposite sides of a frontier and begin shoot- 
ing at each other. Generally, as in the present awful 
cataclysm, there is no cause at first — simply a stubborn 
insistence on revenge by one power, and the wicked sup- 
port of her by another, when she would not yield tt) 
arbitration, even at the request of her supporting ally. 
We Americans all came to feel, I think, that the chief 
hope was in the workingmen of Germany, Russia and 
France, awaking to the fact that they were simply dupes, 
fools, pawns in the hands of avaricious and unscrupulous 
governments. The military cliques at the capitals play 
games and use the masses as pawns ; it would be more 
exact to say as footballs. Or the capitalists desire more 
territory, and they breed a war, and send out the poor 
workingmen, whom they have already been bleeding all 
their lives, to kill their brother workingmen in order to 
gain this new territory. And they go, thinking it is duty, 
patriotism, what-not. But, poor fools, they will come to 
their senses some day and will not go. This present col- 
lapse of Europe was brought on entirely by a little clique 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 5 

of crazy Servians, high up in the government, killing an 
Austrian prince, and the Austrian court seeking revenge 
on this clique. Neither group has ever given the great 
masses of the people any thought, except how to use 
them for carrying out intrigues and aggressions. The 
workingmen of neither country know anything of what 
is going on at court. But suddenly they are arrayed 
against each other, and soon all the workingmen of 
Europe (it is practically only the workingmen who are 
sent to war) are drawn up in battle array just because 
of a quarrel of two cliques of which they know nothing 
and which never cared anything for them. 

On the night of August 3d we came through Liege. 
Two days afterwards the German Government committed 
the unpardonable crime of violating the treaty of neu- 
trality with Belgium and ordered her soldiers to attack 
Liege, the beautiful frontier town of this happy little 
nation, safe, as it supposed, in its neutrality. 

It was this unpardonable crime on Germany's part that 
drew England into the war. But here is my point : 
Those twenty-iive thousand poor German soldiers zvho 
were killed or wounded in that awful battle thought they 
were -fighting Frenchmen zvho were trying to get int&i 
Germany. As a matter of fact, the French had made no 
move up to this time and were still trying to secure peace 
by negotiations with the other powers. 

There are some signs that the workingmen of Europe 
are awaking to the hollowness and sham of all this war 
business, and perhaps one of the outcomes of this conflict 
may be a clearer vision and a more courageous following 
of the ideals they are already holding. I happened to 
attend some of the sessions of the Social Democrats 



6 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

held at Stuttgart six or seven years ago. One of the 
great debates was on the question or whether or not, when 
a general European war should be called, the German 
and French workingmen, both in the shop and on the rail- 
roads, should strike. This general strike would of 
course paralyze all activity. The time had not come to 
carry such a measure, although a surprisingly large num- 
ber were ready to vote it. But we recall with' what en- 
thusiasm Germans and French clasped hands that day 
and said : "We German and French workingmen will 
not bear arms against each other, except to defend our 
country if attacked." Poor fellows, they meant well, but 
they lost courage when the crisis came, and were caught 
up in the great, mad war preparation. Many tried 
to hold out, however, in Germany, as well as in France, 
and remained true to their vows. In Berlin meetings of 
workingmen were held to protest against the position the 
government was taking and against the plunging of 
Europe into war. Some brave speeches were made. 
Then the Kaiser suddenly forbade the holding of assem- 
blies anywhere in Germany as a wholesale method of 
checking the agitation of the democracy. After this the 
poor workingman had to take up arms or be shot. 

In Paris, where there is more freedom of speech than 
anywhere else in the world, I witnessed several proces- 
sions of workingmen passing through the streets of Paris 
crying "A Bas la Guerre' ("To Hell with War"). Of 
course there were groups on the sidewalks who cried in 
opposition "Vive la Patrie," "Vive la France," but the 
striking thing was that such numbers could walk through 
the streets of Paris crying out against war, and not be 
molested. Indeed, at this time, five davs before the war 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 7 

broke out, we found the feeling in Paris was one 
of sadness rather than of war fever. This changed two 
days after we left when France found, that in spite of 
all the efforts for peace she was making, in company 
with England, Germany was bound to drag her into the 
war. But every French workingman with whom we 
talked shook his head and said: "It is all very sad." 
Again let me say, I think the chief hope is with the work- 
ingman and I think he will see this ever more clearly 
after this war. 

I hope also that the Church will have her eyes opened 
as a result of the Purgatory through which she must 
now pass. She was just awaking to her duty when this 
war came. For five years the Churches of Great Britain 
and Germany have been doing splendid work. For five 
years the Churches of America, through the Federal 
Council of Churches, have been speaking boldly on this 
subject. Last year The Church Peace Union was founded, 
and it held its World Conference of the Churches in 
Germany right in the teeth of war. The story of this 
conference and the experience of its delegates in cross- 
ing Germany to England will be told in the succeeding 
chapters of this book. But I believe this catastrophic 
collapse of the nations will at last convince the Church 
that Jesus Christ has no part with a civilization that can 
bring forth nothing better than Hell for all Europe. 



CHAPTER II. 

FROM PARIS TO BASEL: AN INTERRUPTED 
SLEEP 

The cause of our being on the train from Paris to 
Basel was the Conference of the Churches of the United 
States and Europe to be held at Constance, Germany, 
to consider how the churches might together help on the 
cause of international goodwill, and persuade the nations 
to raise their dealings with each other to that high ethical 
plane already reached by all good and even respectable 
men. In February of this year Andrew Carnegie, Esq., 
created a corporation of twenty-eight trustees chosen 
from the highest dignitaries of the churches and most 
eminent leaders in religious and social progress of 
all denominations in America, and endowed it with 
$2,000,000 under the name of "The Church Peace 
Union." The trustees immediately elected me as the 
Secretary of the new foundation, and I was glad to 
accept, because of the great opportunities this munificent 
gift offered to enlist the churches more directly in the 
growing movement to Christianize our international rela- 
tionships. These relationships linger far behind our 
personal relationships in their ethical character, yes, are 
even Pagan. One of the men whom Mr. Carnegie had 
taken into his confidence while planning his new gift was 
J. Allen Baker, M. P., of London, a man of rare qualities, 
who had built up the remarkable organization of the 
English churches for peace, called "The British Council 
of Churches for Fostering Friendly Relations between 
Great Britain and Germany." 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 9 

Mr. Baker was in New York for a while before Mr. 
Carnegie made his gift, and we saw Mr. Carnegie almost 
daily. When Mr. Carnegie intimated to us his decision, 
one of the things we all three rejoiced in was that now 
we could bring all the churches of Europe and America 
together for a conference on the Church and international 
goodwill. Mr. Carnegie made his gift on February 10th, 
and at the first meeting of the Executive Committee of 
the Union I asked for an appropriation of $10,000 to 
bring about this thing of which I had dreamed for years. 
If I remember rightly it was the first appropriation made 
by the Union. 

An Advisory Committee of six trustees, consisting of 
Doctors Charles S. Macfarland, John R. Mott, William 
I. Hull and James J. Walsh and Mr. Edwin D. Mead, 
was appointed to act with the Secretary in taking imme- 
diate steps to call such a conference. We at once got into 
correspondence with Mr. Baker of London and Dr. F. 
Siegmund-Schultze of Berlin, Secretary of the German 
Councils of the Churches. Berne, the capital of Switzer- 
land, and also the center of many international move- 
ments, was first fixed upon as the best place to hold the 
conference, but was abandoned when it was learned that 
the Swiss National Exposition was to be held there. 
Zurich was then suggested, but Constance was eventually 
chosen, as it was thought by the German and British 
secretaries that it would both please Germany to call the 
conference on German soil and attract the attention of 
the German press, which was not much given to reporting 
peace meetings. The date was fixed for August 2d to 
5th, and nothing remained to be done but to secure the 
delegates wanted. M^*. Carnegie invited the trustees of 



10 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR ' 

The Church Peace Union to go as his personal guests, 
and the committee, acting in co-operation with the Fed- 
eral Council of Churches, selected fifty other delegates 
from among the churches. This selection was made on 
a double basis of denominational representation and 
leadership in the peace movement. Great Britain, Ger- 
many, and other European nations selected delegates at 
the same time, and, as will appear later, in spite of all 
the difficulties in the way, two-thirds of these delegates 
from the various countries reached Constance and held 
their conference. 

This explains why Dr. Macfarland and I were on this 
particular train from Paris to Basel. We had left New 
York together for the conference on July 21st, sailing 
by the Aquitania for Liverpool. On the same steamer 
were four other delegates. Doctors Ernest H. Abbott of 
the Outlook, Walter Laidlaw, Rivington D. Lord and 
William P. Merrill. Mrs. Merrill was also with us. 
When we sailed from New York there was no slightest 
sign or rumor of war. We, and the sixty other delegates 
sailing by other steamers, were looking forward to a 
meeting that should both mark and make history. It was 
the first time that the churches of all the nations had 
assembled to talk over the reign of justice, law and peace. 
No one dreamed of war even between Austria and Servia. 
The wicked and foolish assassination o£ the Austrian 
Grand Duke and his wife had shaken Europe; but Aus- 
tria had remained remarkably cool and it looked as if 
war were not to be the outcome of it. It was on the third 
day out that the daily paper published by the ship con- 
tained the announcement that Austria had declared war 
against Servia. Even then we thought it must be a 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 11 

rumor, or simply a representation to Servia demanding 
certain reparations. It was not until we landed and read 
the impossible note which had been sent by Austria to 
Servia on July 23d that we realized the danger that 
threatened Europe. 

We reached London Monday night, July 27th. London 
was calm, and, although the nations on the Continent 
were getting frightened, Sir Edward Grey was corre- 
sponding with the powers, and hope was everywhere ex- 
pressed that Austria would stay active warfare until 
there could be a conversation of representatives of the 
powers at London or elsewhere to see if there could not 
be some method of satisfying the Austrian demands with- 
out resort to war. We hastened on to Paris, and there, 
Wednesday evening, it became apparent that Europe 
was getting nervous. Russia, fearing that Austria would 
not be satisfied with simply punishing Servia, but would 
annex her, or destroy her independence, was beginning 
to mobilize her forces. Everyone felt sure that Germany 
would begin to mobilize if Russia did. If Germany 
mobilized, then France would feel bound to follow, out 
of fear of Germany. Rumors also began to spread that 
Sir Edward Grey was not meeting with success in his 
negotiations with Germany and Austria. 

We remained in Paris three days and the air was 
charged with electricity. The city was calm, but every- 
• thing was tense. On July 27th Servia had replied to 
the Austrian note. The reply practically acquiesced in 
all of Austria's demands, but it was evident that Austria 
was bound to go to war no matter what the reply of 
Servia might have been. On July 27th the British Am- 
bassador at Vienna wrote Sir Edward Grey : 



12 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

"I have had conversations with all my colleagues rep- 
resenting the Great Powers. The impression left on my 
mind is that the Austro-Hungarian note was so drawn 
up as to make war inevitable ; that the Austro-Hungarian 
government are fully resolved to have war with Servia ; 
that they consider their position as a Great Power to be 
at stake, and that until punishment has been adminis- 
tered to Servia it is unlikely that they will listen to pro- 
posals of mediation. This country has gone wild with 
joy at the prospect of war with Servia, and its post- 
ponement or prevention would undoubtedly be a great 
disappointment." 

In Paris there was more sadness than jubilation. I 
have already referred to the demonstrations against the 
war. On the other hand, the cinemas were everywhere 
displaying moving pictures of President Poincare's visit 
to Russia and these were witnessed with great enthusi- 
asm. The police had taken the precaution to clear the 
streets of chairs on the Boulevard des Italiens, where 
usually thousands sit during the evenings drinking their 
coffee. Great swarms of people were on the streets 
watching the bulletin boards of the various journals. 
Every edition of the evening papers was snatched up 
immediately. Everywhere men were selling charts show- 
ing the relative strength of the armies of Europe. Every- 
body knew war was imminent, but the majority were 
hoping that something would happen to avert it. France 
acted nobly to the last and, as appears from the diplo-' 
matic correspondence which has been printed in the 
famous "White Book" and which Dr. Macfarland has 
reviewed in Appendix V, strained every nerve to pre- 
serve the peace of Europe, even to keeping her soldiers 
back several miles from the frontier durins the mobiliza- 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 13 

tion forced upon her, to avoid any indiscreet act against 
Germans by an irritated soldiery. When Friday night 
came things looked ominous. All the nations were be- 
ginning to mobilize. The German government had de- 
clared the nation in a state of preparation for war. But 
we felt it our duty to proceed to Constance, because we, 
the organizers of the conference, must go there if one 
other soul should put in an appearance. 

I have described the sights at the station. Our train 
was the regular express which runs from Paris to Basel 
via Belfort and Muelhausen. This route would carry 
us through a little edge of German territory, where 
Alsace-Lorraine juts doAvn between France and Switzer- 
land. It was here that the trouble came. That very 
night, while we were sleeping on the train, Germany 
closed her frontiers to all foreigners. We had gone on 
beyond Belfort and had reached the little station at 
Petit Croix, a few miles from the frontier, when the 
train was held up by the station master and the news 
imparted that Germany had closed the frontier and torn 
up the tracks. A great, sleepy, shivering crowd was 
dumped down on the platform, and no one knew what 
awaited us. For some unaccountable reason the train 
backed out toward Belfort without taking us back. I 
imagine the crew were so frightened that they did not 
know just what they were doing, except that they were 
getting far away from the German frontier as fast as 
they could. For three long hours, from three to six 
o'clock, we stood shivering and staring at this small 
country station. Little sleepy boys and girls were cry- 
ing and mothers were trying to keep their babies warm. 

At last a train was made up and we were all bundled 



14 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

in, but no one knew where we were to go, except that 
they had been ordered to carry us back to Belfort, the 
garrison town, and the junction where a road runs off to 
the south into Switzerland. It would be possible to 
reach Basel that way by a long detour through Switzer- 
land without crossing German territory. But no one 
knew whether we were to be carried that way or carried 
back to Paris. In time we reached Belfort, and here 
everything was "confusion worse confounded." Train 
after train kept pouring in from all parts of France with 
passengers bound for Switzerland and the German 
town of Muelhausen. When the passengers for Muel- 
hausen learned that the tracks were torn up they were 
filled with blank dismay. They were mostly Germans 
hurrying out of France. To remain in France longer was 
dangerous, for the war fever was spreading, and that 
meant that friendly men would soon become beasts and 
no German's life would be secure. If they could get into 
Switzerland their lives would be safe, but it meant a 
long delay and detour and many of them had no money. 
Their distress was pitiable. I found one German woman 
with three children, all under six, trying to get along 
with them and several pieces of baggage and no porter 
to help her. Later I had the satisfaction of carrying 
the chubby boys to the train, while others helped her 
with the baggage. The French had been kindly the 
night before, but now news had spread all over France 
that Germany had madly decided to wage war on France 
and this had changed the kindliness into a wild rage 
against Germans. It began to be noticeable at Belfort, 
and even German women and babies were liable to 
violence and insult. War in our days knows no manners, 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 15 

no humanity and no religion. All talk about humaniz- 
ing war is pure buncombe, as the recent struggles in 
the Balkans showed and as this war will also soon 
reveal. The majority of the people being emptied out of 
the trains were from Calais and Paris, bound for Switzer- 
land. We remained in our car not knowing whether we 
were to go to Basel, back to Paris, or to remain right 
there. The officials knew nothing more than we. For three 
hours we sat there, except for a few moments when at 
seven o'clock the station restaurant opened and the mob 
rushed for coffee and rolls. Here again we had a chance 
to render service in getting something to eat for the 
German women and children, although it is doubtful if 
the attendants would have sold us the bread had they 
known it was for little German boys and girls. It was 
only the day before in a cafe in Paris that I heard a 
Frenchman say that he would like to have the job of 
splitting every German baby in two with a sword. 

While we were waiting there the train came in from 
Calais and our hearts leaped with joy when we saw J- 
Allen Baker, M. P., the Rt. Hon. W. H. Dickinson, M. P., 
and a dozen more of the English delegates alighting from 
the train. Their train was also billed to go through by 
way of Muelhausen, and here they were stranded with 
us. Finally I managed to get hold of the stationmaster 
for a moment and told him that we had to get to Basel 
somehow, and he intimated that the cars we were in 
would be sent through by a southern route. The guard 
of our sleeping car was a nice fellow and made every 
effort to get our car put through. Soon he came and 
told us that the cars which had been sent back from 
Petit Croix would be put through to Basel. Thereupon, 



16 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

the English delegates were all packed into our already 
overcrowded car, and sitting on satchels and standing 
in aisles we were eventually started for Basel. 

The ride to Basel was eventful, for we got our first 
glimpses of a nation mobilizing its army. We had about 
two hours to ride through France before reaching the 
Swiss border. Belfort is a garrison town, and in every 
village we saw the soldiers gathering to be hurried there. 
Over every hilltop we saw companies of soldiers marching 
in long lines, with hurried steps, to join the regiments. 
At every station we saw crowds of men and boys who 
had been taken right off the farms and out of the factories 
and" shops, and were corralled in the station awaiting 
transportation to Belfort. These were the reservists,, 
and the moment we saw that they were being mobilized 
we knew the situation was serious. We had had no news^ 
but rumors were everywhere rife that Germany was 
mobilizing all her forces. Every man who knew the 
temper of Germany knew that this meant war. These 
crowds were mostly drunk with much brandy and were 
hoarse with singing the Marseillaise and yelling: "To 
hell with Germany." At one station, as several hundreds 
of these poor French boys, more intoxicated than the 
rest, caught sight of the German with his wife and 
babies, who were still with us, at a window of the train, 
they nearly frightened the life out of him and his wife 
hv cursing him and shaking fists at him. At last they 
threatened to pull him out of the window and pound hint 
to pieces, but an officer came along and pounded them 
over the heads with his sword and drove them, as if 
they were pigs, into a pen, and passed them several 
more buckets full of liquor. At every station were 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 17 

swarms of women and children bidding good-b3^e to 
dear ones, and there was much weeping. Poor things, 
they had much cause to weep, for it was just this crowd 
which was, within ten days, sent up from Belfort to 
Muelhausen to fight the first big battle between the 
French and Germans. Most of them now lie dead in 
the fields around that beautiful city. 

It was a great relief to get into Switzerland. While 
the nation was mobilizing a few of its troops for policing 
its frontiers, on the whole it was calm, and at the station 
both railroad men and soldiers were rendering every 
assistance to travelers, regardless of nationality. 
Especially did the Germans appreciate the reaching of 
this haven. For as yet Switzerland supposed that 
Germany would be true to the treaties of neutrality, and 
was as friendly to Germans as to all others. Poor 
Switzerland, too, has now been forced to mobilize her 
whole army and expects to have to fight Germany. For 
when she saw Germany deliberately violate the most 
holy treaties in existence — those of neutrality — all her 
confidence in Germany disappeared. 

At last we reached Basel, and found that to get to 
Constance we must go away up to Schaffhausen first 
and then east to the beautiful city on the lake. It 
was impossible to believe, as the train followed the 
edge of the Rhine from Basel to Schaffhausen, with the 
exquisite scenes of peace and beauty unfolding before 
us, one after another, with the prosperous, happy villages, 
some old, with quaint, red-roofed houses, clothed in vines 
and flowers, others new, with factories and shops betoken- 
ing the new industrial development, that soon all this 
would be devastated by fire and pillage, or else be left 



18 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

to decay by the withdrawal of all the. men to go and kill 
some other working men in equally happy towns. Every- 
where the green fields and red-roofed villages were 
bathed in peace and evening sunlight. As we approached 
Constance the train ran for miles along the wondrous 
lake, where again all was calm and twilight beauty. 
Across the waters slept the old town, with the towers 
of the cathedral outlined against the pink sky. Only in 
the heart of man was there tumult, passion, enmity, and 
revenge. Nature was in tune with God. Man was 
getting in tune with the Devil. 



CHAPTER III. 
IN THE UPPER CHAMBER AT CONSTANCE 

We reached Constance at 7:30 Saturday evening, 
August 1st. We had not heard any definite news since 
the night before, but everything looked ominous in the 
ancient city. We found about thirty of our American 
delegates already there, all in a state of some nervousness. 
which was greatly relieved when we appeared. They 
were afraid we were not going to be able to get through, 
as the German government was everywhere mobilizing 
troops and the trains were becoming uncertain. Further- 
more, Germany was beginning to exclude foreigners. 
Just as we got there an order went out from Berlin that 
no Frenchmen should be allowed to enter Germany, and, 
had it not been that especial exception was made for 
the Frenchmen at our Conference, the French delegates 
would have had to remain in Switzerland. Many of the 
delegates whom we found there had come down through 
Germany the day before. Their experiences with the 
news of the evening had made them timorous, and when 
I arrived they surrounded me and put the question: 
"Shall we hold the Conference or make for England 
immediately before Germany and France close their doors 
absolutely and seize all trains for mobilizing troops?" 
It was finally decided that the business committee of the 
Conference, the American members of which were Bishop 
E. R. Hendrix, Edwin D. Mead, Rev. William P. Merrill, 
D.D., and myself, should meet immediately after dinner 
and decide upon the next step after full conference with 

19 



20 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

Dr. Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze of Berlin, who not 
only knew something of the German situation, bi.it who 
had that day been in touch with the Kaiser, and with 
the Grand Duchess of Baden, between whom and him 
there exists a peculiar and intimate friendship. 

We all ate dinner in the garden on the edge of the Lake. 
Constance is one of the quaintest of German towns. It 
is also historically famous, for it ' was here that John 
Huss was tried and condemned by the great Council of 
Constance, which met here in 1414 and sat for three and 
one-half years. The old church remains the same as 
when he was unfrocked in it and sent forth to execution. 
A stone set in the center of the great floor marks the 
spot where he stood. A monument has been erected 
where he and Jerome of Prague were burned at the stake. 
The Insel Hotel, where we were staying and where the 
Conference was to be held, was the old Dominican mon- 
astery where he was imprisoned. The monastery re- 
mains practically the same, except that the furnishings 
have been modernized. The great refectory with its mas- 
sive high columns and arches has been left untouched 
and is now the hotel dining room. The wonderful 
cloisters are there just as when the monks walked round 
and round them years ago. The walls of the cloisters 
have been painted with famous scenes in the history of 
the monastery and hotel. The monastery was built on 
an island and is approached by a bridge from the rear. 
When one walks through the hotel by the, North cloister 
and reading room one steps out on a terrace to see the 
great Baden See or Lake of Constance spread out in 
the deep blue of evening or the emerald green of noon, 
with the snow-clad Alps towering towards the heavens 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 21 

forty miles across the waters. It is an id3'llic spot either 
for rest or conference of high-minded men together. 
The whole island is covered with a profuse growth of 
trees and flowering shrubs, among which winding paths 
of gravel have been laid. To the south of the hotel there 
is a large space which has been reserved for tables, and 
on warm evenings dinner is served there. 

At eight that evening, under quiet stars, with no noise 
except the lapping of little waves, we ate our evening 
meal. Most of us were silent, for we felt that around 
that peaceful haven the tumult of the world was gather- 
ing into a great storm. 

At nine o'clock the business committee met and for an 
hour deliberated over the steps to be taken. Here were 
thirty-five Americans, sixteen Englishmen and some rep- 
resentatives of eleven other nations.* It would be a pity 
if we should run away right when our word was most 
needed by the nations. Actual war had not been de- 
clared. Dr. Siegmund-Schultze informed us that the 
Kaiser knew all about our Conference and had given it his 
sanction although all public meetings had been forbidden 
in Germany,** and had telegraphed the authorities at 
Constance to grant us every privilege and protection. We 
were in no danger there. The only question was whether 
or not we ought to leave by the first train before war 
actually broke out. The status of things at that moment, 
so far as we could learn, was that every nation except 



* Since this Conference will be historic, it seems only proper 
to print the full list of those present. (See Appendix I.) 

** This decree to the police to forbid all public assemblies had 
been issued to prevent the Socialists holding anti-war demon- 
strations. 



22 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

England was mobilizing as fast as possible ; that ne- 
gotiations between Germany and France had been broken 
off ; that Germany had sent her arbitrary ultimatum to 
Russia and that England was straining every nerve to 
bring the representatives of the nations together, even 
at the last moment, for a conference. (As was after- 
wards revealed when the official correspondence was 
published, at that last moment Austria yielded and ex- 
pressed willingness to treat with Russia, but Germany 
would not withdraw her ultimatum and enter the con- 
ference of the powers.) The advice of the braver mem- 
bers prevailed and it was voted to proceed with the meet- 
ings of the Conference, await the turn of events, and 
not run away. In view of the fact that practically all 
the delegates were there, and that those who were due on 
Monday could not possibly reach there it was also voted 
to begin the sessions on Sunday morning instead of 
waiting until Monday. 

Sunday, August 2nd, will remain one of the most 
memorable Sundays in the lives of all the delegates. In 
view of the awful catastrophe hanging over Europe it 
seemed no time for debate. Only prayer was fitting in 
the gathering darkness. It was a sweet and beautiful 
Sabbath morning, but in our hearts we heard all over 
Europe the roll of war drums, the tread of marching 
feet, the hoarse cries of soldiers for the blood of their 
fellow-men. Even while we were gathering for prayer 
the stillness was broken by the sounds of soldiers march- 
ing and drunken men in the village still yelling for war 
after the whole night's debauch. (I would not give the 
impression that all the people of Constance were yelling 
for war. It was only the soldiers and the poor thought- 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 23 

less youth. The majority of the people were sad and 
knew not why their nation was going to war, knew not 
the necessity of Germany bringing the Hell of 1870 and 
the Napoleonic days upon the people.) At 10 a. m. the 
whole body had assembled in the little hall above the 
dining room — the room where five hundred years ago the 
famous Council of Constance had often met to discuss 
the grave problems of heresy and the problems of the 
Reformation. There were about eighty of us present 
and there was no desire of one to speak to another. 

A solemn hush brooded over the assembly. Every 
heart was aching. The burden of a world about to be 
plunged into purgatory weighed heavily on every heart. 
Everyone knew that on that Sunday the fate of Europe, 
of civilization, perhaps of Christianity itself was to be 
decided. Russia had not answered. France as well as 
Germany was mobilizing. Only England as yet had not 
begun preparations for immediate war. As we after- 
wards learned England was that day straining every 
nerve to keep Germany from plunging recklessly into 
the strife. There was nothing to do but pray. 

Mr. Baker was in the chair, and with tears in his eyes 
told of the remarkable work that had been accomplished 
by the British and German churches to establish good- 
will between the two nations. A group of men of good- 
will existed in each nation whose friendship no wars 
could break. It looked as if this were all to go for nought 
— to be wasted in a moment. But we must not believe 
that. Such work could never be in vain. If war came, 
after it was over there would be this foundation on 
which to build anew. Even then it was not too late. It 
seemed incredible to him that all Europe should go to 



24 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

war even considering the steps toward war that had 
already been taken. Let us all pray to God with all our 
hearts that He avert this dire catastrophe. 

Before the prayers Bishop E. R. Hendrix of Kansas 
City, Missouri, and Bishop John L. Nuelsen of Zurich, 
Switzerland, were asked to say a few words that our 
hearts might be attuned to our high purposes and our 
faith sustained as the Kingdom of God seemed ready to 
fall all about us. Their remarks were of that prophetic 
nature that lifted them into prayer and, like prayer, would 
lose their high character in print. Bishop Hendrix's 
words were a call to cling to God with renewed fervor, to 
keep our faith that even above a sinful, confused world 
His hand ruled ; that out of men's blindness and passion 
He would bring some ultimate good. He believed that 
if this awful war came, out of it the world might learn 
that their trust in brute power and force was vain. Here 
was the result of it. At last they might see that there 
was no lasting security, justice, peace, except as they put 
their trust in God. The peacemakers would go home 
with this message for all the world. Perhaps the world 
would now be prepared to listen. 

Bishop Nuelsen of Zurich reminded the delegates that 
they were not praying alone that morning. That in 
thousands of churches and from millions of hearts of 
men and women, prayers were now ascending to the 
throne of God that this conflict of the nations might be 
avoided. Let us remember that these wars were not 
begun by the people — but by ruthless monarchs and the 
cliques about them. He had just come from two great 
international gatherings where members of ail nations 
had been sitting about the Lord's table together. These 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 25 

were not the men who made war. They with us were 
lamenting these dark days. Even though this war came, 
and lasted long, after it was over the real Christians of 
all lands would again get together and plan for a time 
when Christian brotherhood should supplant war. 

Then came the time of prayer. If ever the meeting 
in the Upper Room has been repeated in history, it was 
in that hour. Outside Germans, French and English 
were going out to fight one another; here Germans, 
French and English were kneeling in prayer. Outside 
the people were calling for blood ; here representatives of 
twelve peoples were praying for increased love for one 
another. Outside the Germans, French and English were 
hurling epithets of hatred and revenge at each other; 
here they were pledging themselves in new ties of brother- 
hood in Christ's Kingdom of goodwill. Representatives 
of five nations were called upon for prayer. First I 
was asked to pray as representing America. I have 
prayed for public gatherings perhaps five thousand times 
in my life, but never before this morning did I realize 
what it was to ^ voice the cry of the people before me, 
and of the world. I had no conception of what I should 
say when I arose — I have no idea now of what I said. 
I only know that my heart was bleeding for the sins of 
the world and I saw a vision of millions of little children 
who were soon to roam the devastated cities hungry, cold, 
fatherless, all because of the sin of a few men. I saw 
the mad orgy of lust, vice, drunkenness, hatred, cruelty 
that was to be loosed, and I felt for once something of 
what Christ felt in Gethsemane. I could only beseech God 
over and over again to spare us this thing, and to teach 



26 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

men that Christ's test of discipleship was that they should 
love one another. 

After I had finished praying, Dr. Siegmund-Schultze, 
as representing Germany, prayed, and Dr. John Qifford 
from England. Then Dr. Marius Dumesnil from France, 
and Dr. K. Bohringen from Switzerland. It is too bad 
these great prayers could not have been printed and 
distributed by the millions among" the nations. It is too 
bad the governments who were waging war against each 
other could not have heard Germans praying for God's 
blessings on France and England; English and French 
praying for God's blessing upon Germany. Still kneel- 
ing we remained a time in silence. Then those who had 
sufficient control of themselves to utter words continued 
to lift our hearts unto the Lord. As I sat there it came 
over me when the peace of the world should come. It 
would be when the peoples of the various nations felt 
toward one another as we in that room felt toward one 
another. I looked up once and there before me I saw 
a German, a Frenchman, and an Englishman kneeling 
so close together that their arms touched. Nothing in 
heaven or earth could have made those kneeling disciples 
of the Lord fight one another. Were the heads of the 
nations — of even three nations of Europe — Christians as 
those three men were Christians— no power in heaven 
or earth could plunge their nations into war. I believe 
there are many people in every nation who have reached 
this stage of real Christianity. I believe this feeling 
is spreading among the people. I find it among working 
men in Europe. It found expression in the streets of 
Paris. It would have found considerable expression 
among the working men of Germany had not the Kaiser 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 27 

prohibited all assemblies of the people. I have increas- 
ingly found it among the pastors of the churches, 
especially in America and England. It is growing every- 
where. The pity of it is that it has not reached the 
dignitaries of either state or church in two or three 
nations. Had every Protestant pastor in Germany 
reached the point of real Christianity that those Germans 
kneeling beside the English at Constance had reached, 
and had the Roman Catholic priests in Austria reached 
the point that those priests of the various nations have 
reached who were to have knelt side by side in prayer 
the week after our Constance meeting — in that very 
city of Liege which now lies in dust and ashes — in a con- 
ference similar to ours, this war would not have been. 
This is all there is to the peace movement — to bring the 
leaders of the church, the nation, the Trades-Unions, the 
Social Democracy, to the point of Christian brotherhood 
those kneeling disciples had reached in that quiet Chamber 
of the Lord at Constance. It is all so simple, so easy, so 
near, but so seemingly impossible, so hard, so far oflf, be- 
cause of our stubbornness, our blindness, most of all, our 
sin. The meeting closed with a word from Dr. George U. 
Wenner, the eminent Lutheran pastor of New York, who 
had been to the morning service of that church in the city. 
The people in the great congregation were in tears, he told 
us. Yes, all over Germany and France and England the 
people — the Christian people — were in tears, but they 
had no word to say or knew not how to say it, while the 
governments were plunging them into calamity and ruin, 
over nothing but the desire of a few men in Austria to 
get revenge in their own perverse way. How long must 
this last? How long must the people of Germany and 



28 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

Austria remain dumb under the rods of the heartless 
and the oppressors? Again, is not here a great hope for 
peace, that before long the people of Germany and 
Austria and Russia will insist on democracy, on having 
a voice as well as feelings ? It is worthy of careful notice 
that the two democracies of Europe, England and France, 
did all within their power to fend off the war, using 
every resource until the last moment. Let us have 
democracies for another reason. It "is easy to educate 
democracies. Pastors and teachers are freer to speak 
their views and the people can discuss great problems 
free from censorship. Again perhaps democracy and 
peace must come together. 

It seemed like sacrilege to transact any business at 
the close of that sacramental meeting. But it was the 
Lord's business and had to be done. First of all the 
following petition was unanimously adopted and ordered 
telegraphed to every ruler of Europe, and to the Presi- 
dent of the United States : 

"The Conference of members of Christian churches 
representing twelve countries and thirty confessions 
assembled at Constance to promote friendly rela- 
tions between nations, solemnly appeals to Christian 
rulers to avert a war between millions of men amongst 
whom friendship and common interests have been steadily 
growing, and thereby to save from disaster Christian 
civilization and assert the power of the Christian spirit 
in human affairs." 

Then the question of continuing the Conference had 
to be settled. There was considerable nervousness among 
the delegates. Some had imperative duties at home and 
some had little children who needed them, so that the 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 29 

probability of being shut up in Constance for several 
weeks or months, even though they might be safe, some- 
what alarmed them. But when I put to our American 
delegates the point that here was a great opportunity of 
history to show the world that instead of silencing us, 
the nations going to war would only make us bolder, 
and that if they were going to fight we were going to 
talk peace all the more earnestly; that this would be a 
spectacle ^vhich neither our own nation nor Europe would 
ever forget, almost with one voice they voted to go on 
with the conference. The English and other delegates 
took the same brave attitude, and the first session of the 
Conference to take up the regular business was set for 
that afternoon at 4 o'clock. The significant events of 
this second remarkable gathering will be rehearsed in 
the next chapter. 



CHAPTER IV. 

PREPARATION. FOR WAR AND PREPARATION 
FOR PEACE GO ON TOGETHER 

When the time for luncheon arrived on Sunday we 
found that so malny of the waiters and cooks of the Insel 
Hotel had enlisted the night before that it was impossible 
to serve m.eals in the garden and we must all have our 
luncheon together, at one hour, taking the same courses, 
so at 12 :30 we sat down in the great refectory where five 
hundred years before the monks had sat together eating 
while some brother read passages from the Bible or some 
other holy book. It was also in this room that John 
FIuss had been tried. As a matter of fact the Reforma- 
tion may be said to have begun in this room. I think 
that we all felt that perhaps the seeds of another 
Reformation were being sown that day as we sat down 
fresh from the Upper Chamber and planned together 
how the church might purge herself of trifles and what 
she must do to prevent such utter collapse of Christianity 
as we were witnessing in Europe. These feelings were 
voiced in the sessions of the afternoon ; for after an 
hour's intermission the Conference reassembled. Even 
at that hour it was believed that we could go on with 
our regular Monday and Tuesday sessions. Those of 
our party close to the Kaiser and to the British govern- 
ment even yet could not believe but what, at the last 
moment, the unbelievable crisis would be avoided. So, 
instead of taking up the regular program, the meeting 
became one of general discussion of what the churches 

30 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 31 

had already accomplished in enlisting their leaders and 
people in the new order of substituting law for war, 
justice by courts for force, goodwill for hatred, the 
rivalry of brain and commerce for that of arms and 
militarism, humanity for a narrow nationalism, patriot- 
ism for the Kingdom of God for the older patriotism 
bounded by race and nationality. But of even more 
importance than this was the discussion of the great 
task before the church : Where must the new Reforma- 
tion begin? What must the new Reformation give birth 
to? What could the awakened church do to extend the 
rule of Christ over the nations? How could the church 
be brought to speak the word that should end wars 
forever? 

I doubt if any group ever assembled with a weightier 
responsibility resting on them than that company felt that 
afternoon. The time was so short that it was felt best 
that those who had speeches which had already been 
printed should simply sum them up and then give them 
out to be read by the delegates. Mr. Baker then offered 
his to the assembly. It bore the title: "The Churches 
and International Friendship." It called attention to the 
fact that we were meeting on the same spot where five 
hundred years ago, in 1414, the Council of Constance 
met. That council was presided over by the Norman 
Emperor Sigismund and attended by twenty-six princes, 
one hundred and forty counts, twenty Cardinals, twenty 
Archbishops, six hundred Prelates, and four thousand 
Priests. Its deliberations lasted three and one-half years. 
This was the second Council of Constance and he hoped 
that those gathered here might lay the foundation of a 
work among the churches of Christendom that, under 



32 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

divine blessing, might promote the peace of the world 
and Christian brotherhood among the nations. "The 
Conference of 1414 was concerned with reconciling the 
warring factions of a single church, with deciding who 
should be its earthly head, and with establishing unity 
and harmony where division and dissension had prevailed. 
We are concerned in finding among the many sections 
of the church in all Christian countries a basis of agree- 
ment which, under the guidance and leadership of our 
Eternal Head, the Prince of Peace, will enable us to 
co-operate in bringing nearer the unity and harmony of 
His Kingdom of Righteousness and Peace." Mr. Baker 
then dwelt upon the fact that the churches must do the 
foundation work in the peace movement. They must 
create that disposition and temper which is the soil in 
which peace may grow; they must educate the people 
"to look to the moral law rather than to physical force, to 
right rather than might, for the solution of differences 
and disputes which from time to time arise." Further- 
more Mr. Baker believed that both the rulers and the 
people look to the church for this leadership. He then 
surveyed the growth of the movement among the 
churches of Europe which led to the creation of the 
British and German Councils. Mr. Baker then called 
attention to the intolerable condition of Europe groaning 
under armaments, even though no war should come — 
but they were always a menace and a provocation to war. 
(It was only one day after this address was made that 
Mr. Baker's words were verified. It was because all the 
nations were armed to the teeth that the whole cataclysm 
came on In a week's time and no diplomacy could check 
it. Men trained to fight, with pistols in each hand. 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 33 

will use them under very slight provocation.) He then 
showed the various agencies at work — Peace Societies, 
the Norman Angell group and others — but came back to 
the final fact, that it will be on moral and spiritual grounds 
that war will ultimately be stopped. "We believe with 
Lord Haldane that, 'It is not brute force, but moral 
power that commands predominance in the world,' and 
we are here to see if it be not possible to unite these 
moral forces, as we know them to exist in our Christian 
lands, and to create such an attitude in our respective 
countries and among the nations of the world as will, 
in due time, render wars between them an impossible 
contingency." 

Dr. Macfarland, Secretary of the Federal Council of 
the Churches of Christ in America, then offered his 
paper, printed both in English and German, to the people. 
It made a great impression upon the European delegates 
as they read it, for I think that none of them had realized 
how far the churches in America had gone. Dr. 
Macfarland showed how at the preparatory meeting in 
Carnegie Hall, New York, 1905, the Hon. David J. 
Brewer had set forth International Peace as one of the 
objectives of the proposed Federation of the Churches, 
and, at the ultimate organization of the Federal Council 
in Philadelphia, 1908, a committee on International 
Relations, of which the Hon. Henry Wade Rogers was 
Chairman, had presented a statesman-like report, the 
larger ^part of which Dr. Macfarland quoted in his 
address. It proposed a world-vnde movement of the 
churches, endorsed the Hague Conference and submitted 
a definite program for the new Federal Council of 
Churches. 



34 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

In the summer of 1911 Dr. Macfarland had conferred 
with leaders of the Church Peace Movement at London 
and Berlin, and in the follov/ing autumn the Federal 
Council Commission on Peace and Arbitration was 
appointed, with Rev. J. B. Remensnyder as Chairman and 
Rev. Frederick Ljmch as Secretary. 

The Report of this Commission for 1912 was presented 
to the Conference by Dr. Macfarland. It set forth plans 
for a peace campaign which since that time has been 
persistently carried on. At the quadrennial meeting of 
the Federal Council in Chicago in 1912, James A. 
MacDonald of Toronto had set the work of International 
Peace before the Federal Council as its great objective. 

When the United States was perilously near 
war with Mexico, the Federal Council Commission on 
Peace and Arbitration called upon the churches of 
America to speak, and their protest against war with 
Mexico had a decided effect at Washington and greatly 
upheld the hands of those who counseled arbitration and 
mediation. In the same way the Federal Council had 
brought to bear the support by the Protestant Churches 
of America of President Taft in his splendid effort to 
secure absolute arbitration treaties between the United 
States and the European nations. The most recent action 
of the Council in international affairs had been the 
appointment of a Commission on Relations with Japan, 
composed of fifteen of the most eminent leaders of the 
churches. The services of Rev. Sidney L. Gulick, D.D., 
of Japan — missionary and statesman — had been secured 
to guide the work of this Commission, which is to make 
a thorough study of the whole American- Japanese 
problem and bring to bear upon it the light of the Chris- 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 35 

tian Gospel. The President of the Federal Council, Prof. 
Shailer Mathews, has been selected to go to Japan, as 
an ambassador of the churches to the people of Japan, 
accompanied by Dr. Gulick and other representatives of 
the churches. 

Another Committee of One Hundred is making plans 
for the celebration of the Treaty of Ghent, of which 
Associate-Secretary Henry K. Carroll of the Federal 
Council is Chairman and Rev. Frederick Lynch, Secre- 
tary, said Dr. Macfarland. This committee represents 
thirty denominations and is working in connection with 
The Church Peace Union. Besides this the Council was 
educating the pastors in international questions through 
its Commissioners on Social Service, Missions and Relig- 
ious Education. It was securing splendid resolutions on 
International Peace at all the national meetings of the 
denominations, and was having the subject presented to 
theological seminaries. It was working in heartiest co- 
operation with The Church Peace Union and had paved 
the way for its work among the churches. The Council 
would now devote more attention than ever to this great 
cause and would work to make the churches of America 
take that same stand on peace and goodwill that Christ 
himself took. 

I had also prepared an address for the Conference but 
I could not give it in view of what was happening all 
about me. All I could think of was the collapse of 
civilization, the din of whose falling walls was then 
and there in our ears, the failure of our Christianity to 
prevent such a reign of darkness coming upon the earth 
in the twentieth century of the Prince of Peace, the 
great primary and elemental work which the church 



36 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

must do after the havoc and destruction were over; even 
half felt that perhaps a new and different church must 
be born, just as out of the first Reformation a new church 
was born. This was so constantly on my mind that 
every time I spoke, as American Secretary of the Con- 
ference, I gave voice to these thoughts. I said that the 
church had concerned itself too much with trifles and 
had neglected the weightier matters of the law. It had 
been attacking petty sins, but had ~ not been attacking 
hatred, revenge, excessive race consciousness, narrow 
patriotism, and that nationalism which contradicts the 
Kingdom of God. It had been splendidly demanding that 
individuals love each other (in their own nation), but 
had not preached that it is just as obligatory that nations 
love each other. It had preached that it was a crime 
for one man to kill another, but not that it was equally 
criminal in God's eyes for one nation to destroy another. 
It had led its people in the weekly commandment, "Thou 
shalt not steal," but had not led the nations in repeating 
this universal law of God. It had said to its members, 
"No Christian will fight his brother with fists," but it 
had not said, "No Christian nation will fight another 
nation with iron and powder." It had taught its children 
that that man was great who loved and served and gave all 
he had to his fellow-men, but it had not taught themi that 
that alone made a nation great. Indeed, had it not even 
taught that that nation was greatest which destroyed 
and subdued weak people, and added empires to its rule? 
All this will be changed in the church of the second 
Reformation, the church to be born out of this purging 
of the nations. Clear and strong its voice v/ill ring out: 
"There can be but one religion, one law, one standard 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR Zl 

of conduct in the whole Kingdom of God. Nations must 
come under the same Gospel as that by which the people 
live; nations must adjust all their relationships by the 
same laws that bind good men to each other; nations 
must come up to that same high plane to which the 
Gospel calls all souls. The Kingdom of this world must 
become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, 
while at the same time the people become His also." 

Hardly had this afternoon meeting closed when Dr. 
Siegmund-Schultze received intimations from the local 
authorities that mobilization was going on fast and the 
train service becoming more and more irregular. In 
view of this it was decided to take up at the evening 
session the most important part of the program, the 
passing of the four resolutions that had been prepared 
with a view to determining the future co-operative work 
of the churches of Europe and America and to making 
the Conference permanent. 

In the hour that intervened before dinner several of 
us strolled through the ancient city. We had been 
assured of protection and had been warned only in 
regard to cameras. That very morning we had received 
a telegram from Doctors Walter Laidlaw and Rivington 
D. Lord that they had been arrested and detained at 
Oos, a hundred miles north of Constance, because they 
had a picture of an airship on their films. We learned 
next day that they had been liberated, although their 
camera had been confiscated and deposited in the war 
museum. Constance was one of the recruiting stations 
and it was interesting to note the methods the govern- 
ment was taking to stir up the war fever. A big band 
was stationed in the public square playing "Germany 



38 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

Forever," "The Watch on the Rhine," and other national 
airs. Officers were strutting about in gorgeous uniforms. 
Posters were displa3'ed to the effect that Germany was 
being menaced on every side by her foes. It worked with 
the young men and boys, but the older men were very 
grave and sober. No one seemed to have any conception 
of why the country was being plunged into war. As 
we walked home we saw the soldiers stopping wagons 
in the streets and taking out the horses for military uses. 
Som.e of the young men were singing, but as evening 
came a very solemn hush settled over the city, broken 
only by the sound of one company of poor fellows after 
another being marched off to kill they knew not whom, 
nor for what reason. All along the streets women were 
crying as their sons and husbands were driven off to be 
shot. 

We little realized as we re-entered the sheltered Hotel 
Insel the exciting hour that lay before us. Dr. Sieg- 
m_und-Schultze had been sent for by the president of the 
city and informed that all the railroads of Germany were 
to be handed over to the military authorities the follow- 
ing night (Monday) at twelve for mobilization purposes, 
and that the only train on which he could offer a certain 
and safe convoy through Germany would leave the 
following morning at nine o'clock; that he could get us 
two- special cars on that train which would go to Cologne 
at least, and perhaps to Holland, under supervision of 
the government ; and that he advised us to take them as 
there was no telling when there would be another train 
across Germany. This announcement was made to the 
delegates as soon as they ywere assembled and was 
received with mixed feelings. Some had so set their 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 39 

hearts on carrying out the program of the Conference 
that they demanded that we stay and take the risks of 
being kept there for any length of time. Others who 
had famihes needing them at home and work which 
could not be left long insisted on going. But discussion 
was soon stopped by the sudden announcement sent to 
me from the hotel office that the bank had closed, that 
the hotel not only could not advance any of us money 
but must also close its own doors. There we were, 
eighty people, hundreds of miles from England, with no 
tickets across Germany and no place to cash our checks. 
I had letters of credit in my pocket of ample size to get 
the whole eighty to London, but they were of no use with 
closed banks and a bankrupt hotel. What could we do? 
Then occurred one of the most interesting events of 
the Conference. I arose and said : "There are some 
here who have enough money in gold (the only kind 
worth anything outside of German paper) to buy their 
tickets and have some left over. There are others who 
have not nearly enough. There is only one way to get 
our whole party safely to London and that is for every- 
body to put all the gold he has into a common pot. 
Furthermore this is wise, for the only way in which 
any one can get safely through Germany is for all to go 
together. The response was instantaneous. A hat was 
placed on the table and one by one the delegates came 
up and put in their gold, the amount being entered 
against each one's name. (This money was afterward 
refunded in London.) By thus owning all things in 
common enough was secured not only to buy tickets 
for eighty people to London but to distribute half a 
pound to each for food upon the way. There came home 



40 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

to everybody, as perhaps never before, the meaning of 
the great word community. 

It was then voted to proceed with the evening session. 
The first half hour was devoted to prayer and two or 
three general addresses. Rev. W. P. Merrill, D.D., of 
New York City was in the Chair and greatly encouraged 
us all by reminding us that it might be almost providential 
that we who had been commissioned to lead the churches 
in the fight against war had been permitted to share 
those experiences through which Europe was passing. 
Also we should remember that it was God's world still 
although many of His children had forgotten His ways. 
We were led in prayer by the Bishop of Lichfield and 
others, and then we listened to three or four addresses 
from the representatives of different nations. There was 
a universal desire to hear from Professor Sidney L. 
Gulick of Japan, and he consequently spoke at this time. 
His address on "Constructive Methods for Promoting 
International Peace" made such an impression that I am 
printing it as an appendix to this story.* The Confer- 
ence then proceeded to adopt the following four reso- 
lutions : 

I. "That, inasmuch as the work of conciliation and 
the promotion of amity is essentially a Christian task, 
it is expedient that the churches in all lands should use 
their influence with the Peoples, Parliaments and the 
Governments of the world to bring about good and 
friendly relationships between the nations, so that, along 
the path of peaceful civilization, they may reach that 



* See Appendix H. 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 41 

universal goodwill which Christianity has taught man- 
kind to aspire after." 

II. "That, inasmuch as all sections of the Church of 
Christ are equally concerned in the maintenance of peace 
and the promotion of good feeling among all the races 
of the world, it is advisable for them to act in concert 
in their efforts to carry the foregoing resolution into 
effect." 

III. "That in order to enable the different churches 
to be brought into touch with one another, steps should 
be taken to form in every country councils of either a 
denominational or interdenominational character (as the 
circumstances of each case require) whose object it will 
be to enlist the churches, in their corporate capacity, in 
a joint endeavor to achieve the promotion of international 
friendship and the avoidance of war, and that for this 
purpose a central bureau should be established for 
facilitating correspondence between such councils, collect- 
ing and distributing information and generally co-or- 
dinating the work connected with the movement." 

IV. "That the duty of carrying into effect the resolu- 
tions arrived at by the Conference be entrusted to a 
committee consisting of the following members: Mr. 
J. Allen Baker, M. P., London; Rt. Hon. W. H. 
Dickinson, Ml. P., London; Monsieur Jacques Dumas, 
Paris ; Monsieur le Prof esseur Louis Emery, Lausanne ; 
Monsieur le Pasteur Elie Gounelle, Paris; Rev. E. R. 
Hendrix, D.D., LL.D., New York; Herr Hofprediger 
Kessler, Dresden; Herr Konsistorialrat Liittgert, Berlin; 
Rev. Frederick Lynch, D.D., New York; Edwin D. 
Mead, Esq., M.A., Boston; Rev. W. P. Merrill, D.D., 
New York ; Monsieur le Pasteur Jacques Pannier, Paris ; 



42 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

Monsieur le Senateur E. Reveillaud, Versailles ; Herr 
Professor Dr. Richter, Berlin; Rev. J. H. Rushbrooke, 
M.A., London; Herr Pastor Dr. Siegmund-Schultze, 
Berlin ; Very Rev. the Dean of Worcester ; with power 
to add to their numbers, and that the committee do 
arrange for a further conference to be held at a later 
date, at which they shall report the result of the work 
done, and bring forward recommendations for further 
action." This committee met in -London Thursday, 
August 6th, and organized with J. Allen Baker, M. P., 
Chairman; Rev. William P. Merrill, D.D,, Vice-Chair- 
man; Rev. Frederick Lynch, D.D., and the Rt. Hon. 
W. H. Dickinson, M. P., Secretaries. 

The Conference then adjourned to meet at the West- 
minster Palace Hotel, London, Wednesday, August 5th, 
at 4 p. m. 



CHAPTER V. 

FROM CONSTANCE TO LONDON— AN EVENT- 
FUL JOURNEY 

Monday morning, at 9 o'clock, eighty delegates, includ- 
ing Americans, English, Germans, Norwegians, Swedes, 
Danes, Dutch and Bulgarians, were at the station at 
Constance to take the train for Cologne. The French 
and Swiss delegates had been allowed to cross the frontier 
into Switzerland. The Scandinavians had voted to go on 
to London to the adjourned meeting of the Conference. 
There were two special cars provided for us by the 
courtesy of the German government, and they were billed 
to go clear through to Flushing. At the station the 
confusion was such that it was with difficulty that the 
cars could be reached. Hundreds of families besides our- 
selves were trying to get home to England. The station 
was piled mountain high with baggage and the officials 
could promise nothing except to stick the label Cologne 
on it, which was as far the train itself was to go. There 
was no time to weigh it, so we paid a lump sum of six 
hundred marks to the stationmaster and he promised 
to send it on the second section of the train. The 
proprietor of the Insel Hotel had been most obliging to 
us. He trusted us to pay the big hotel bill sometime in 
the future, when cheques could again be collected in 
Germany. He put up eighty lunches in four great 
hampers, with eighty bottles of apollinaris water. We 
saw those hampers put into the luggage van, but when 
we were to get them in Ofifenburg, they had disappeared. 
The train to which this car had been hitched was full 

43 



44 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

of soldiers being transported to Cologne, so that it did 
not require much mental exercise to imagine where those 
eighty lunches had gone. Our party just about filled 
the two special cars comfortably, but the crowds of 
travelers and soldiers striving to secure seats was so 
great that in five minutes they had boarded our cars and 
filled the aisles as full as the compartments, and at every 
station more poured in. 

The experience of English and" Americans crossing 
Germany on this eventful day were varied and, in many 
instances quite opposite, and led to much discussion in 
the English papers. One man would report his treat- 
ment as most brutal, while another received only kindest 
treatment. Mr. William Cleveland-Stevens of London, 
who crossed Germany from Bayreuth, where he had been 
attending the Wagner Festival, states that about 9 o'clock 
on Sunday morning his party, consisting of three ladies, 
the chaufifeur, and himself, set out by motor car from 
Bayreuth. He continues : 

"It struck me that an extraordinary change had already 
taken place in the attitude of the people in Bayreuth 
toward us, and the impression gained on us very strongly 
as we passed through the various villages on our way. 
Groups of reservists and their admirers were collected 
in every village, and the friendly nods and greetings we 
had hitherto met with were ominously lacking. Thanks 
to a number of false directions, which we subsequently 
realized had been given on purpose, our progress was 
slow, and when we had got about twenty-five miles, in 
accordance with directions given at a previous village, 
we came to a place in Saxe-Coburg-Gotha called 
Weidhausen. 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 45 

"The telephone had evidently prepared the people 
for an arrival, for as we slowed down to examine a sign- 
post five or six men, most of them drunk and all with 
the most evil and forbidding faces, their leader a drunken 
uniformed official, came out from a small beerhouse in 
a state of great excitement. Before we could realize 
that anything was the matter they demanded with shouts 
and menaces what right we had to be there. A large 
crowd had already gathered round the car. We were 
compelled to turn and drive at a walking pace through 
the village. By this time at least 300 people had collected 
round us, and we came to a halt just in front of the 
Burgomaster's house. Amid excited exclamations of 
'foreigners' and 'spies' large tree trunks were rolled up 
against the wheels of the car, and a revolver was held 
at the chauffeur's head to compel him to switch off the 
engine. Two Russian spies had been caught in the 
neighborhood on the previous day, and our position was 
not improved by the discovery that our front tires were 
of Russian make. 

"Two or three scoundrels clambered into the car and 
roughly held up the ladies' arms and searched them. 
The chauffeur and I were powerless to help them, for 
the least resistance would, I feel certain, have cost us 
all our lives. When the mob had sufficiently calmed 
down to look at our papers the discovery that we were 
English and not Russians caused their fury to break out 
afresh. It was only the timely arrival of the district 
Chief of Police that saved us. After spending some 
minutes in quieting the crowd he removed his helmet 
and sword and proceeded (rather I think to pacify the 
mob than to satisy himself) to subject the car and every 
article in it to the most searching examination." 

On the other hand Lady Barlow, who was in our party 
from Constance, sent the following letter to the London 
pan<:>rs fH- ^dv after the above letter appeared: 



46 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

To the Editor, Daily Chronicle: 

Sir — I have just returned from a visit to Germany, 
where I received as usual the kindness and consideration 
which I have always found there. 

The Emperor was holding back a declaration of war 
in order that every other means might be tried of con- 
ciliation. The German Conservative papers were rest- 
less under the delay, but his Majest}^ was firm. 

The feeling was one of dread of the great foe from the 
East — Russia — and the cry was : "We beg of England 
to remain neutral to both ourselves and France in face 
of this threatened invasion of the Slavs." I had the 
opportunity of speaking more than once with a member 
of the Imperial Family, and found no trace whatever 
of the supposed arrogant claims of Germany. At the 
Protestant Stadt Church of Konstanz on Sunday, men and 
women sat with tears running down their cheeks at the 
thought of what the future had in store. I do not know 
what they will feel when they find England added to 
their list of enemies. 

The kindness of the people is best indicated by the 
conduct of the proprietor of my hotel, who, when I 
went to tell him I was penniless, as most of us were, 
begged me not to be troubled, and added : "I know that 
you will pay me some day." 

The popular impression I find here regarding Germany 
is quite incomprehensible to those of us who know her. 

Believe me, yours truly, 

Anna Barlow, 
Torkington Lodge, Hazel Grove, Cheshire. 
• August 5, 1914. 

In this narrative I propose to confine myself strictly 
to what the members of our owm party saw. The con- 
clusion we came to at the end of the day was that the 
German people as a whole were kindly disposed toward 
even the English, but that the soldiers were brutal in 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 47 

their treatment of everybody with whom they came in 
contact. Indeed, the soldier is necessarily brutal from 
his training. He is taught from childhood that Russia, 
England and France are his deadly enemies and are only 
waiting the opportunity to subdue his fatherland. He is 
taught that war is the highest expression of which human 
nature is capable. Treitschke, whose teachings are the 
Bible of the German soldier, says that of all sins the sin 
of feebleness is the most contemptible. "It is the political 
sin against the Holy Ghost." Again he says that "the 
devotion of the members of a community is nowhere so 
splendidly conspicuous as in war." For years General 
Von Bernhardi has been informing the German youth 
that increase of armaments is not an inevitable evil, but 
the necessary condition of national health, and that efforts 
directed toward the abolition of war are not only foolish 
but positively immoral and unworthy of the human race. 
Such efforts, he said, threatened to poison the soul of 
the German people. What Germany wanted "must be 
fought for and won against superior forces of hostile 
interests and powers." As to England, a pacific agree- 
ment with her was a will-o'-the-wisp. At this particular 
time news had been sent to all the German soldiers that 
Russia, France and England had all played false against 
Germany and surprised her when she was desiring peace. 
This had made them bitter and furthermore most of 
them were drunk, which is the common condition of the 
European soldier when he is not actually on the field of 
battle. 

At every station there were trains being filled with 
soldiers, with reserves, and with young men from the 
fields and shops. Great crowds of women with their 



48 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

babies and children were at the stations to see the soldiers 
off. They tried to cheer, but they mostly wept, while 
the innocent children ignorantly cheered their fathers 
off to death. At one station we saw one young man 
suddenly go crazy as he was torn from his wife and 
little baby, so that he had to be pitched into a freight 
car by half a dozen men and held firm by strong arms. 
We are told that this was a frequent occurrence and that 
these men would simply be taken out of the regiment 
and put to menial tasks. As the train rolled along we 
saw columns of soldiers winding over the hills, the 
line looking like a great snake in the distance. The rail- 
road was ever}^where patrolled by soldiers and the 
tunnels carefully guarded to prevent spies or some enemy 
blowing up the track or wrecking a train. For half an 
hour before approaching a station and for half an hour 
after leaving we were ordered to close every window. 
We never knew whether that was for our own protection 
or a matter of precaution taken by the military authorities. 
But some of the soldiers at the stations eyed all foreigners 
v/ith ugly glances, evidently suspecting spies on every 
train. Indeed, the further we got into Germany the 
more evident it was she had lost her head, had got into 
a panic, and was fast becoming irresponsible. This was 
borne out by the news when we reached London, where 
we found that she had recklessly drawn every great 
nation of Europe into war against her, and shut off her 
food supply on every side. The immediate violation of 
the neutrality of Belgium was a sure sign that she had 
lost her head, for she knew that England, which up to 
this time had remained neutral, must then take up arms 
against her. The signs of this frenzy were everywhere. 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 49 

There happened to be a Russian on the train with us 
who was endeavoring to get his wife and little baby 
safely through Germany into Holland or England. At 
Mayence he was discovered by some German soldiers who 
immediately suspected a "spy," and they pulled him out 
of the train and at the point of several bayonets he was 
carefully searched for papers. Not satisfied with this 
they then roughly jerked his wife out of the train and 
searched her. She was so frightened that, although they 
were reluctantly permitted to go on, her milk ceased 
flowing, and the poor little baby got nothing to eat for 
twenty-four hours. The next day, on the boat from 
Flushing to England, Lady Barlow found an English 
mother with a nursing baby who shared her bounteous 
breasts with the little Russian baby. It was pathetic to 
hear the scream of delight with which the little thing 
leaped to his dinner. These are they who suffer most 
in war and only few wars are worth the suffering of a 
dozen of them. But men seem to care not at all how 
much they make these millions of babies and children suf- 
fer, how much they orphan their own children, if they 
can only gratify their lust for killing somebody of another 
land. * 

As we went down the wonderful Rhine at evening time 
it seemed hard to believe that those beautiful hillsides 
would soon again be devastated and bathed in blood ; that 
the pretty villages would soon be burned and laid in 
ruins. At every station trains were being filled with 
soldiers and horses, often the men and horses jammed 
into the same car. Many of those being packed into the 
cars seemed nothing but boys. At one station I saw 
three young men, flushed with drink, leap from the car 



50 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

standing on a side track and try to pull three young girls 
into the car onto the straw. An officer heard their 
screams and drove the soldiers into the car, amid much 
laughter from the others. The violation of women by 
soldiers will amount up into the thousands during this 
year, as it is sort of taken for granted that this is a special 
privilege condoned in those who "defend their country's 
honor." 

It was impossible to get any lunch on the train 
and it was difficult to get auA^thing to eat at the stations, 
so great was the rush for food. I managed to subsist 
on an occasional sausage, some grapes, pieces of chocolate 
and bottled waters. Many had to stand from nine in 
the morning until we reached Cologne at nine in the 
evening. 

At Cologne there was less confusion, as the military 
authorities had cleared the station and were already 
seizing all the trains for soldiers. We would probably 
have been dumped there had it not been for the passport 
Dr. Siegmimd-Schultze had secured, and the special 
protection we had received. After much debating Dr. 
Siegmund-Schultze and the conductor, who had accom- 
panied us from Constance, persuaded the authorities to 
let our cars go through to the Dutch border town of 
Goch, while they telegraphed to the Dutch railroad to 
meet the train, as it contained two carloads of the most 
distinguished men of England and America. Here we 
began to see further signs of war, for on every side we 
could discern searchlights sweeping the heavens for air- 
ships, and that very night two ships had been shot at by 
the German guns, especially constructed for this purpose. 
Here Dr. Sieg^mund-Schultze said farewell to us. I think 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 51 

he would have gone on with us to Fkishing could he 
have followed his inclinations, but no German could get 
out of Germany that night. His parting with the English- 
men, Mr. Baker, Mr. Dickinson and the others, with 
whom he had been working intimately for five years to 
bring about good feeling between Germany and Great 
Britain, was pathetic. They had become the warmest 
friends and deep affection existed between them. They 
had lived in each others' homes. Together they had 
striven for the good of humanity, and nothing makes such 
close and abiding friendships as these friendships that 
reach far above those based upon nationality. And now 
they had to part, not knowing if ever they should meet 
again ; not knowing what the future might bring forth. 
But they were hopeful in their parting and did not lose 
faith. Their work had not been in vain. While their 
governments are fighting each other, there is a group of 
churchmen in each country who have risen above this 
sort of thing, and when the war is over they will still be 
fast friends and ready to take the work up again where it 
has been rudely broken off. As for me, knowing the 
fine sensitiveness of this noble young German, and know- 
ing the great wound this sudden outburst of strife and 
passion had inflicted in his heart, I could say nothing 
as we parted, only tears would come. Finally I said: 
"We shall meet again next summer unless the world 
comes to an end before that time." He left us with his 
beautiful and gentle little wife, to hurry to his babies in 
Berlin. No greater commentary on the irony, farcical- 
ness, absurdity, yes, childishness of war could well be 
found than in the parting of Mr. Baker and Dr. Sieg- 
mund-Schultze. Here they were, ardent followers or 



52 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

the same Master, consecrated servants of the same cause 
and humanity's devoted friends, esteeming each other 
much more highly than each esteemed many of his own 
selfish, ignoble countrymen , and now, because one 
happened to be English and one German, they must each 
hasten home and prepare to kill one another ! But how 
about refusing to bear arms against one's brother of 
another land in an unjust cause? Well, on the day fol- 
lowing this a friend of mine was in a little town in Europe 
where four men refused to bear arms against their broth- 
ers in another land. In my friend's sight they were stood 
up against the side of a house and four bullets put 
through them without any words. 

The run from Cologne to Flushing was begun with 
considerable anxiety. Rumors reached us that Germany 
had decided to break the treaty insuring the neutrality 
of Belgium. We could not at first believe it, for this 
is the greatest crime of which nations are capable. If 
the neutrality of Switzerland, Holland and Belgium is 
to be violated at the opening of any war, or at the con- 
venience of any nation that so chooses, there is no faith 
left between nations. Furthermore, only a nation that 
had gone crazy would do such a thing, for it meant that 
every nation party to the treaty must defend its integrity. 
If the rumors were true it meant that England, up to 
that evening neutral, must wage war against Germany 
for breaking her holy vows. Unfortunately it was only 
too true, and our train that night passed through the 
very territory where only two nights later the first great 
battle of the war was raging. For it was at Liege this 
first great battle was fought. 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 53 

We had hoped that our cars would be carried through 
to Flushing. But it drew on toward midnight when we 
reached Goch, the little frontier town of Holland, a few 
miles south of Antwerp, and every car in Germany was 
to pass into the hands of the army at midnight. We at 
least hoped we might not have to do what others we 
afterwards met in London were forced to do — get out 
eight miles from Goch and then reach the frontier as 
best we could. But here our imperial patronage and 
the telegram which had been sent ahead helped us. We 
were carried into Goch and there transferred to a Dutch 
train awaiting us. After an hour we started through the 
sleeping country of Holland. It was about 1 a. m. and 
most of us had had no sleep. We were about to disperse 
ourselves for a few hours' nap, when one of our party 
who had been through the cars came to me and said : 
"Bishop Hendrix and Dr. Spencer are missing." A 
search was instituted and surely enough, they were 
not there. The next day we learned that they had fallen 
«o fast asleep on the way from Cologne that they had 
not heard the orders to change cars. The cars they were 
in had gone off to the south while they were innocently 
sleeping. The next day they somehow got back to 
Flushing and got the evening boat to London, arriving 
twelve hours after the rest of the party. A little way 
out of Goch we came to the Dutch customs office. They 
paid no attention to our baggage, but they scanned every 
passenger carefully to discover his nationality and to 
see that no Dutch youths were leaving Holland. 
For even then Holland was getting frightened, fearing 
that Germany, if she paid no attention to the neutrality 
of Belgium, might gobble up Holland next. Con- 



54 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

sequently, Holland was mobilizing to protect herself from 
Germany, as was Switzerland far off to the south. At 
last our party, tired, hungry, sleepy, reached Flushing. 
It was about 7 a. m., and as the boat did not sail until 
eleven o'clock we had time to get the first real meal in 
twenty-four hours. How refreshing a big cup of hot 
Java coffee was ! And our party ate all the rolls and eggs 
there were in Flushing. It was now that the smokers 
began to bewail their lack of money. For the Java 
cigars are so cheap in Holland that one of our party 
said : "It is a waste of money not to smoke." Cigars 
equal to fine Habanas sell in Holland for three or four 
cents each. It was a question of conscience with me 
whether to let these eminent divines have money enough 
to buy a box or two each to carry to England, where, so 
they told me, the cigars were vile and expensive. But 
finally I decided I could not act as conscience for these 
men, but would charge them interest on the loan. I am 
afraid I shall never get the interest. 

The boat from Flushing to Queenborough, at the 
mouth of the Thames, was so crowded with people and 
baggage that there was hardly room to step. Yet every- 
body was kindly, for everybody recognized that we were 
"all in the same boat" in more senses than one. Some of 
us made ourselves helpful by assisting mothers who had 
three or four children as well "as three or four pieces of 
baggage. I made the acquaintance of babies of all na- 
tionalities if not of all tongues. (For French, English and 
Russian babies cry in the same language, and a baby's 
yell is the original Esperanto.) Fortunately we had a 
smooth sea and did not have the added wrestle with sea 
sickness. That would have been the last straw. But 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 55 

the tensest moment of all the journey was before us. 
When we reached the mouth of the Thames we were 
stopped by a British cruiser and informed that mines 
had been laid in the channel in anticipation of a German 
attack and that a naval pilot would have to steer us 
through. We all had implicit confidence in that 
pilot, nevertheless we all held our breath and a great sigh 
of relief came when we were safely through. One of 
our eminent divines — I will not say whether it was one 
of the Bishops or not — remarked that he hoped to go to 
heaven when he died, but he did not want to be blown 
into it. I suppose it affected his sense of a dignified 
approach. If we could not have laughed once in a 
while our hearts would have broken over what we saw 
awaiting poor Europe. At Queenborough the English 
government made one great mistake, pardonable perhaps 
in view of the great strain upon it and the imminence of 
greater things. Here were hundreds of poor, tired 
refugees, most of them England's own people, fleeing to 
her arms, mothers and sick, crying babies. It was then 
night and everybody was anxious to get to London. And 
yet that exhausted, fleeing crowd was made to carry all 
its hand luggage to the customs office and have it 
submitted to examination. Many did not get away for 
an hour or more because of this, for they had to wait for 
new trains to be made up. One indignant Englishman 
exclaimed to the chief customs officer: "Is this the 
welcome England gives to those who are rushing home 
to fight for her?" It made no impression. It was much 
more important that one box of cigars should not get 
into England free of sixpence duty that night than that 
a thousand people phould be spared the discomfort of 



56 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

that hard hour. One who passes through custom 
houses often soon realizes that nations are childish in 
more ways than one. By midnight all our eighty dele- 
gates were asleep somewhere in London. Although the 
hotels were crowded they somehow managed to accommo- 
date all Americans. In closing the record of this event- 
ful journey let me bear witness to the kindness of the 
London hotel proprietors to Americans. They lodged 
and fed many who had no money, and in many cases 
even lent money to those who could not get their checks 
and letters of credit cashed immediately. 

In the next chapter I shall tell the story of the ad- 
journed meeting of the Conference in London, during 
one of the greatest moments in England's history. 



CHAPTER VI. 
ENGLAND'S SOLEMN HOUR 

We awoke from a long and refreshing slumber 
Wednesday morning to find all England plunged in 
deepest gloom. Up to this Wednesday, August 5th, it 
had been hoped that England would have remained 
neutral. I am inclined to think that the widespread 
sentiment for neutrality would have prevailed had not 
news come that Germany had attacked Belgium. Not 
only the regular peace workers but many in parliament 
and elsewhere were urging neutrality. 

In all churches on the previous Sunday there had been 
prayers for the maintenance of peace and sermon 
references to the menace of a world war. At West- 
minster Abbey in the afternoon, the Archbishop of 
Canterbury said that what was happening was fearful 
beyond all words. What did it all mean? Did it mean 
that the hopes once cherished of the battle flag being 
furled were a crazy delusion, and that war was so 
inveterate and essential a habit of the peoples of the 
earth that to look for peace was a fanatical and baseless 
dream? To think so would, as it seemed to him, be to 
belie the Christian faith, Christian promises, Christian 
hope. The thing which was now astir in Europe was 
not the work of God but of the Devil. It was not the 
development of God's purposes, it was the marring of 
them by the self-will, the sheer wrongness of man. They 
had got to set themselves, slowly it might be, but 
determinedly, as the generations passed, to eradicating and 

57 



58 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

making unendurable the temper among men from which 
such things spring, to "shrivel the falsehood from the 
souls of men" in the name of the Prince of Peace. The 
Archbishop of York, in the Minster, said good might 
come out of the evil if it drew them together and bade 
them, when it was past, look back with shame upon those 
voices that had sought to divide class against class and 
people against people. The officials of the Brotherhood 
and Adult Schools Movements united in a request to all 
Brotherhoods and Adult Schools to pass resolutions and 
use all other means of influence on Members of Parlia- 
ment and the Government to localize the area of the war 
and to maintain, if at all possible, British neutrality. 
The Bishop of Hereford, in a notice to his clergy, asked 
them "to do everything possible in the name of our 
church to strengthen the Government in maintaining 
a policy of strict neutrality and laboring for peace." 

Our own British delegates, immediately upon reaching 
London, published the following urgent appeal to the 
nation in the cause of peace and neutrality : 

"We have just returned from Germany, where we 
have been attending the first international conference 
of the churches for the promotion of friendship among 
the nations. We have seen with our own eyes the 
amazing rapidity of the growth of the war fever and 
the widespread misery caused by the mere generation 
for warfare. 

"There is, however, clear evidence that the serious 
part of the German nation has entered only with the 
utmost reluctance on the present war, and deplores the 
possibility of a fresh outbreak of bitterness and misunder- 
standing with Great Britain. 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 59 

"We are dismayed beyond measure at the thought that 
England may be involved in the cataclysm of the present 
conflict. In the original quarrel we, as a nation, have 
no lot or part. We have ties of warm friendship with 
the peoples both of Germany and France, and no hostility 
to any people in Europe. If we can, even now, maintain 
this position, we still have a wonderful opportunity of 
acting as peacemakers and the friends of all. If this 
opportunity is not to be lost, the conscience of our land 
must speak more speedily than the spirit of the hate and 
international ill-feeling, propagated by the voices which 
call for war. 

"For the sake of the land we love and our brethren 
of other lands, in the name of the God of our common 
worship, we appeal to our fellow-countrymen not to 
despair, even at this hour, of discovering a just and 
peaceful solution, and that to this end we lift up our 
prayers as with one voice to Almighty God." 

The appeal bears the following signatures : J. A. 
Kempthorne (Bishop of Lichfield), John Clifford, J. 
Allen Baker, W. H. Dickinson, W. Moore Ede (Dean of 
Worcester), W. Leighton Grane (Prebend of Chichester 
Cathedral), Anna Barlow, Joan Mary Fry, Meriel L. 
Talbot, David Brook, J. Morgan Gibbon, R. C. Gillie, 
J. A. McKeigan, J. G. Tasker, Henry T. Hodgkin, and 
V. D. Davis. 

Many even went so far as to urge England to observe 
neutrality after it was plain that Germany intended to 
invade Belgium. 

Protests against British intervention were backed by 
The Manchester Guardian and The Daily Neivs. A 
British Neutrality Committee was formed. In a mani- 



60 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

festo signed by Lord Courtney of Pen with, Mr. J. 
Ramsay MacDonald, Mr. G. M. Trevelyan, Mr. Gilbert 
Murray, Mr. J. A. Hobson and others, it was urged that 
England was not bound by her engagements and her vital 
interests to give armed support to France and Russia, 
and that it would be disastrous both to domestic and 
Imperial interests to engage at this crisis in a great 
Continental war. Mr. Joseph King voiced opinions 
largely held by those in favor of strict neutrality in a 
letter to the press on the neutrality of Belgium. He 
admitted that Britain equally with France and Germany 
had recognized the neutrality of Belgium, but held that 
though England was interested in the neutrality of 
Belgium, she was in no way pledged to defend that 
neutrality with the forces of the Crown. Rev. J. E. 
Roberts, M. A., B. D., Dr. A. S. Peake, and other Free 
Church leaders supported the neutrality demand. On 
Saturday a "Protest of Scholars" was issued in which 
they said: "We regard Germany as a nation leading 
the way in the arts and sciences, and we have all learned 
and are learning from German scholars. War upon her 
in the interest of Servia and Russia will be a sin against 
civilization." The Socialists held a demonstration in 
favor of neutrality in Trafalgar Square as late a.= 
Saturday. 

.As late as Wednesday The Daily News contained an 
announcement of "The Neutrality League," printed in 
big black-faced type and covering a whole page of the 
paper.* But after the news came that the Germans had 
actually entered Belgium all talk of neutrality, except 



* See Appendix IV. 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 61 

on the part of a few, was blown to the winds. Mr. 
Carnegie, in a telegram sent in reply to a request to urge 
neutrality after Germany had acted, voiced the feeling 
of the nation. He said : 

"Protest to-day is useless. German Emperor refused 
Britain's friendly invitation to peaceful conference of the 
Powers, signed by no less able and peaceful statesman 
than Sir Edward Grey, and proposed in return that 
Britain agree Germany be permitted to march through 
Belgium to attack France, thus placing Belgium, Holland, 
Sweden and Norway open to her fleets and armies. Her 
Emperor, hitherto for twenty-five years the world's fore- 
most peace potentate, has to-day become chief destroyer 
— a 'War Lord' of Europe. 

"We advocates of heavenly peace and foes of hellish 
war must not fail to expose and denounce the guilty 
originators thereof. The German Emperor's refusal to 
attend Britain's peaceful conference was followed by the 
present alarming upheaval of the demons of war. I be- 
lieve the Emperor knew not what he did when he refused 
Britain's olive branch of peace, and now mourns over 
his error. But this is already of the past — the looms of 
the gods weave no erasures. 

"We men of peace feel that of all crimes the killing 
of men by their fellow-men is the 'foulest fiend ever 
loosed from hell,' the deepest disgrace to so-called civili- 
zation, and we must not fail to call to account guilty 
Emperor, King, President, or Statesman. 

"Her Peace Conference having been rejected by Ger- 
many, I feel that Britain only did her duty when she 
promptly refused Germany's counter-proposal to be per- 
mitted to invade Belgium to attack France, and declared 
she would protect Belgium by land and sea. In doing 
so she points out that Holland, Norway and Sweden 
were equally endangered by Germany's request. Britain 
offered Germany the olive branch of peace; this rejected, 
she has resolved to protect Belgium, and probably the 



62 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

smaller countries named, if necessary, from invasion by 
Germany, which I for one cannot disapprove. On the 
contrary, I feel that Britain was in honor bound to pro- 
tect Belgium. 

"Andrew Carnegie." 

After this it became dangerous to urge neutrality, 
although some peace people held out to the last. By 
Wednesday all hope of neutrality was gone and our 
Conference assembled at the Westminster Palace Hotel, 
with England drawn into the war. 

The answer to the ultimatum sent to Germany regard- 
ing Belgium was unsatisfactory, and at 12:15 Wednesday 
morning the Foreign Office had issued the statement : 

Ozving to the summary rejection by the German 
Government of the request made by his Majesty's 
Government for assurances that the neutrality of Belgium 
will be respected, his Majesty's Ambassador at Berlin 
has received his passports and his Majesty's Government 
has declared to the German Government that a state of 
zvar exists betzveen Great Britain and Germany as from 
II p. m. on Avgust 4th. 

War had come and the English delegates who entered 
the conference room at 4 p. m. were bowed with great 
burdens and wore sad faces. It was impossible to tran- 
sact routine business at such an hour. A motion that 
the Conference should prepare a statement to be issued 
to the world was debated for a time, but at last it was 
thought best to forego any public utterance. It was 
too late to stop the universal war. Any other message 
would not have been listened to at this time. The 
English had been drawn in against their will, and all the 
world knew it. At no previous time in history had a nation 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 63 

made so fine and brave a stand for peace — even to the 
last hour — as had England. It was then five o'clock. 
I arose and said that first of all I wanted to voice the 
sympathy of the Americans for our brothers now drawn 
into the deep floods. It was our burden as well as theirs. 
We would suffer with them and we were glad so long as 
this calamity had to come upon them that we were there 
to share it with them and uphold them. To this Mr. 
Baker responded although it was hard for him to speak, 
for no man in England, unless it had been Dr. Dickin- 
son, had worked so hard for goodwill among the nations 
as had he. Great gains had seemingly been won, and 
the future looked brighter than ever. This First Church 
Conference for Peace was going to give still greater 
impulse, when lo ! in only a week all had seemingly been 
swept away, proved useless, of no avail. Mr. Baker, 
speaking with great difficulty, told us what the presence 
of Americans had meant to them all in these hard hours. 
He refused to believe the work had been in vain. He 
felt that this calamity was a call of God to us all to 
work with a passion and devotion that should conquer 
the world. Perhaps out of this conflagration the churches 
would rise purified and say to the world : "This must 
happen never again forever." 

After Mr. Baker had uttered these heartfelt words, I 
suggested that in the hour that remained Dr. Clifford, 
Mr. Mead, and others should tell us what in their mind 
should be the duty of the churches in the immediate 
future. What should we who were there say to our 
hearers and our readers when we had returned home? 
Should we feel that our efforts were useless, or should 
this be a call to renewed consecration, to a greater effort 



64 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

than we had ever before made? I said I would Hke to 
know what those present were going to say to the hun- 
dreds of people who would greet them with, "Where now 
is your peace movement?" as of old they taunted the 
Psalmist with, "Where now is thy God ?" These questions 
called forth the most remarkable utterances of the Con- 
ference, from such men as Dr. John Clifford, Edwin D. 
Mead, Dr. J. Morgan Gibbon, Dr.- Philip S. Moxom (who 
was acting chairman), the Bishop of Lichfield, George 
W. Nasmyth, and Dr. Charles S. Macfarland. Among 
others who spoke was Lady Barlow. I am sorry I have 
no record of these addresses — confessions rather, for each 
one spoke from the heart, from deepest feeling and con- 
viction. But I can sum up the three or four impressions 
that have remained with me from the truly great utter- 
ances of these men. As one man remarked, it was worth 
coming to Europe to hear these words alone. 

First, there was the deep conviction that Jesus Christ 
meant His Kingdom to be peace, and a brotherhood that 
surpassed any national boundaries. He did not intend 
that men should kill each other in His Kingdom. It was 
the duty of His ministers to work for that Kingdom 
and to preach that Kingdom regardless of immediate suc- 
cess, even though all men preferred evil. 

Secondly, we must not look upon this war as the 
failure of the Peace Movement. Great gains had been 
made in spite of everything. Two of the great nations 
of the world, England and France, had done everything 
in their power to prevent it, speaking boldly for lasting 
peace, and had gone into it only at the last moment 
when dragged in. In every country there Avas a larger 
group than any previous year had found who had been 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 65 

outspoken against their nation going to war. Also this 
movement among the churches had created groups in 
every land whose friendship no war could break. The 
moment this war ceased the representatives of these 
groups would get together and take up the work just 
where it had been interrupted. Meantime the American 
group could keep up correspondence with the groups in 
the warring lands, looking to the speedy restoration of 
peace. 

Thirdly, it might be that this war would be such an 
object lesson to the churches of the complete failure and 
break-down of the present political order, of militarism 
as a means of preserving peace, of force as a method of 
settling international disputes, that they would be ready 
to turn to the new order with an eagerness not yet 
evinced and listen to our gospel with an attention never 
yet betrayed. 

Fourthly, we who had been through such scenes had 
so seen at first hand how war breaks every high human 
tie, had had its iniquity, its abnormality, its utter con- 
tradiction to Christianity so burned into our soul that our 
message would have a new intensity, our soul a deeper 
passion, and our voice a power and pathos that might 
move men mightily. 

The regular Conference adjourned after a moment of 
solemn prayer, and a meeting of the American delegates 
was called for 4 p. m. the following day. This meeting 
of the American delegates had been called especially to 
adopt a declaration to the Federal Council of the Churches 
of Christ in America, which a committee of Federal 
Council delegates, consisting of Bishop E. R. Hendrix, 
Bishop Luther B. Wilson, Rev. William P. Merrill, D.D., 



66 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

Canon Georg-e William Douglas, D.D., Rev. Charles S. 
Macfarland, Ph.D., and Rev. Frederick Lynch, D.D., had 
been asked to prepare. This declaration is printed in 
full in the Appendix.* 

It is a document worthy of careful study. I would 
call special attention to one phrase, because I heard 
almost every one of the eighty delegates, sooner or later, 
express this sentiment, it being the one impression burned 
into every soul : 

"We are witnessing the reductio ad absurdum of un- 
christian civilization ; for peace is not to be secured by 
preparation for war (even if unchristian men compel 
their brothers in self-defense, and for the sake of sacred 
treaties, to make war) ." The declaration was unanimously 
adopted, and the representatives of religious bodies in 
America not in the Federal Council asked permission to 
add their endorsements and so make it a declaration to 
all the Protestant Churches of America. 

Resolutions of thanks to Mr. Carnegie were also passed 
at this meeting. For when the Americans reached Lon- 
don they found all banks closed for three days, and 
many of them were short of money. Others had no 
money at all, the extra expenses having exhausted all 
they had brought. Others had to buy new steamship 
tickets at high rates, the old ones on continental lines 
having become useless. The cable to America was un- 
certain. I at once telegraphed Mr. Carnegie at Skibo, 
and he telegraphed back to the London Branch of the 
Royal Bank of Scotland to let us have all the money 
we needed on his account. It came as a godsend to 



* See Appendix HI. 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 67 

our 'Stranded delegates. We immediately opened an 
office in Mr. Dickinson's rooms, where, every day, Mr. 
Nasmyth advanced money to the members of our party 
and their friends. 



CHAPTER VII 
LONDON IN WARTIME 

Our last four days were spent in London, with Eng- 
land at war with Germany. It was an unique experience. 
As will be seen from the correspondence between Sir 
Edward Grey and the different powers, an analysis of 
which appears in the x\ppendix,* England devoted all her 
energies to making peace up to the night that Gennany 
entered Belgium. Dragged out of her position at the last 
moment, she declared herself in a state of war with 
German)^ on the very evening we reached London. C'ur 
train from. Flushing landed us about 8 p. m. Dr. Mac- 
farland and I had telegraphed ahead to several hotels 
for accommodations and finally secured a room at the 
Cecil. After dinner we went out on the streets. London 
was getting excited. As we strolled down toward the 
Parliament buildings the crowd grew denser and denser 
and more demonstrative. It was then about 10 p. m., and 
the Commons was awaiting Germany's answer to the 
Piritish ultimatum concerning Belgium. The time limit 
expired at midnight and no answer had come. While 
we were on the streets the unsatisfactory answer came. 

The whole city had been at fever heat ever since Mr. 
Asquith's declaration, m.ade in the afternoon, that in view 
of Germany's continued refusal to make the same promise 
France had made, to respect Belgian neutrality, he had 



* See Appendix V, "Some Sidelights on the Collapse of 
European Policies," by Rev. Charles S. Macfarland, Ph.D., 
Editor. 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 69 

sent an ultimatum to Germany to respect the neutrality 
of Belgium and that the tim.e limit had been set at mid- 
night. Mjy readers will be interested in seeing the exact 
words which Mr. Asquith used in his memorable speecii 
— a speech which set all England on fire and whidi 
assured all Europe that England, whose attitude had 
hitherto been uncertain, was now committed to the gen- 
eral war. It was as follows : 

In conformity with the statemicnt of policy made by 
m}'- Right Hon. Friend, the Foreign Secretary, yesterday, 
here, a telegram was sent early this morning by him to 
our Ambassador in Berlin, and it was to this effect : 

The King of the Belgians has made an appeal to his 
Majesty's government for diplomatic intervention on 
behalf of Belgium. 

His Majesty's government are also informed that the 
German government has delivered to the Belgian govern- 
ment a note proposing friendly neutrality pending a free 
passage through Belgian territory, and promising to 
maintain the independence and integrity of the Kingdom 
and its possessions on the conclusion of peace, and threat- 
ening, in case of refusal, to treat Belgium as an enemy. 

An answer was required within twelve hours. 

We also understand that Belgium has categorically 
refused this flagrant violation of the law of nations. 
(Cheers.) 

His Majesty's government are bound to protest against 
this violation of a treaty to which Germany is a party 
in common with ourselves, and must request an assur- 
ance that the demand made upon Belgium will not be 
proceeded with and that their neutrality will be respected 
by Germany. We asked for an immediate reply. (Loud 
cheers.) 

We received this morning from our Minister at Brus- 
sels the following telegram : 

"The German Minister has this morning addressed a 
note to the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, stating 



70 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

that, as the Belgian government .has declined the well- 
intentioned proposal submitted to them by the Imperial 
Government, the latter, deeply to their regret, will be 
compelled to carry out, if necessary by force of arms, 
the measures considered indispensable in view of the 
French menace." 

Simultaneously we received from the Belgian Legation 
here the following telegram from the Belgian Minister 
for Foreign Affairs : 

"The general staff announce that territory has been 
violated at Verviers, near Aix-La-Chapelle." 

Subsequent information tends to show that the German 
force has penetrated still further into Belgian territory. 

We also received this morning from the German Am- 
bassador here a telegram sent to him from the German 
Foreign Secretary and communicated by the Ambassador 
to us. 

It is in these words: 

"Please dispel any distrust that may subsist on the part 
of the British government with regard to our intentions 
by repeating most positively the formal assurance that, 
even in the case of an armed conflict with Belgium, Ger- 
many will not under any pretence whatever annex Belgian 
territory. (Cries of "Oh! Oh!" and laughter.) 

The sincerity of this declaration is borne out by the 
fact that we solemnly pledged our word to Holland 
strictly to respect their neutrality. 

It is obvious that we could not profitably annex 
Belgian territory without making a territorial acquisition 
at the expense of Holland. 

Please impress upon Sir E. Grey that the German 
army could not be exposed to French attack across Bel- 
gium, which was planned according to absolutely unim- 
peachable information. Germany has in consequence 
disregarded Belgian neutrality to prevent what means 
to her a question of life and death, the French advance 
through Beleium." 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 71 

1 have to add this on behalf of H. M. government 
— we cannot regard this as in any sense a satisfactory 
communication. 

We have in reply to it repeated the request made last 
week to the German government that they should give 
us the same assurance with regard to Belgian neutrality 
as was given to us and to Belgium by France last week, 
and we have asked that a reply to that request and a 
satisfactory answer to the telegram of this morning, 
which I have read to the House, should be given before 
midnight. (Loud and prolonged cheers.) 

This announcement of the Premier was received with 
sadness in spite of the cheers, but with practically unani- 
mous assent by the House. Men cried and cheered at the 
same time. It was the answer to the request in the last 
paragraph that all England was awaiting. Demonstrations 
were beginning as it drew on towards midnight and no 
answer came. Then, while all England was waiting, the 
news venders rushed down the streets shouting, "Germany 
has entered Belgium." That was the answer of Germany 
to the ultimatum. For the first time in my life I saw a 
mob go wild. The papers were snatched up by the surg- 
ing crowd and in a moment all were gone. It drew on 
towards midnight and again the mob grew quiet. There 
was a hush that was terrible as the big clock struck 
twelve. At ten minutes past midnight some one rushed 
out of Commons and shouted : "War has been declared 
with Germany," and again the mob broke loose. Great 
hordes fell into line and marched through the streets 
shouting and singing, but the more serious portion shook 
their heads, for they knew what it meant — all Europe 
at war. One man turned to me and exclaimed : "It is 
the end of the world." I must confess I felt at that 



72 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

moment that he was not far off in his estimate. But 
since then I have gained more hope. It was an awful 
hour, however, when one learned that every great nation 
of Europe was involved in a universal war. 

Wednesday morning dawned on a nation at war. The 
whole aspect of London had changed. The German 
steamship companies were boarding up all their office 
windows, the German shopkeepers were closing all their 
Siores, and the German Ambassador was preparing to 
leave. The screams of news vendors filled the air. Mer- 
chants and business men wore serious faces. Little boys 
were marching through the streets in companies, carry- 
ing British flags and beating tin pans for drums. Be- 
fore the war offices great crowds of young men were 
waiting to enlist. The King was reading the official 
proclamation from the steps of the War Office. The 
banks had all been ordered closed until Friday, to avoid 
panic and a sudden rush upon them by depositors. This 
last act greatly inconvenienced the Americans who had 
landed from the Continent with no English money or 
gold. The American Express Company opened their 
offices mornings and cashed checks up to $40.00. One 
of the finest things of all was the act of the Great Eastern 
Railroad, which opened an office at its station and cashed 
any kind of checks for Americans up to $50.00 in gold. 
(The superintendent of this railroad is an z^merican, 
Mr. H. W. Thornton, and this truly philanthropic act 
was probably due to him.) At the American Embassy 
great crowds of Americans were gathered. These were 
referred to the American Relief Committee, which had 
opened headquarters at the Savoy and was working in 
harmony with the Embassy. It was here I met Mr. 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 73 

Oscar S. Straus, who told me something of what the 
committee was doing. He afterwards gave out a state- 
ment to the London papers, which greatly relieved the 
Americans in London, although, unfortunately, it could 
not reach the 30,000 Americans left on the Continent. 
I went straight from the Embassy to the Savoy and got 
in touch with the American committee, which was doing 
remarkable work. 

They informed me that the American cruiser Tennessee 
was about to sail with a great sum of money in gold to 
assist the Americans to get home. A banking office was 
opened, with Mr. F. I. Kent, Vice-President of the Bank- 
ers' Trust Company of New York, at the head, which 
cashed many checks and helped any who were in imme- 
diate distress. By Friday the financial situation was 
relieved ; the banks were opened, and it was possible 
to draw money on Letters of Credit. Also on this day 
the government issued notes for one pound and others 
for ten shillings. Then the American Committee turned 
its attention to securing passage to America for stranded 
tourists. All the German and French boats had been 
called ofT and only a few of the boats of the Dutch and 
English lines were sailing. The tickets on the Conti- 
nental lines were valueless, although they will probably 
be redeemed in New York. On Friday news came that 
the Cunard line had fitted up the steerage of the Laconia 
for first-class passengers, and some of the men who had 
tickets for the Aquitania got passage on the Laconia. In 
this way some of the men of our party, myself among 
them, who had urgent family reasons for getting home 
immediately, got berths. (We sailed the next Saturday, 
sleeping in the steerage, but in all other regards traveling 



74 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

first cabin. Our rooms were very satisfactory and 
clean and well ventilated.) The American Committee 
assured all that they would be cared for and returned 
home sooner or later. It was also announced that the 
United States would soon be sending transports for those 
who could not get passage on the regular lines. 

Wednesday was one of the most memorable days in 
the House of Commons that English history has seen. 
It was the day of the great debate on the first appropria- 
tion for the war — an appropriation of $500,000,000. 
Some of our party, through the kindness of our English 
delegates who were members, were privileged to hear 
Mr. Asquith's memorable speech to the following 
motion : 

"That a sum, not exceeding £100,000,000, be granted 
to His Majesty, beyond the ordinary grants of Parlia- 
ment, towards defraying expenses that may be incurred 
during the year ending March 31st, 1915, for all meas- 
ures which may be taken for the security of the country, 
for the conduct of naval and military operations, for 
assisting the food supply, for promoting the continuance 
of trade, industry, and business communications, whether 
by means of insurance or indemnity against risk, or 
otherwise for the relief of distress, and generally for all 
expenses arising out of the existence of a state of war." 

This speech will be one of the great documents of 
history, and represents the English point of view on this 
whole matter so fairly that I will quote the most impor- 
tant sections of it here. It shows conclusively how Eng- 
land strove to the bitter end not only to preserve peace 
between Germany and Russia and Germany and France, 
but even assured Germany that, would she refrain from 
aggression and keep calm, England would do everything 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 75 

to insure her against attack from Russia and France. 
Even after the bid of Germany to England to betray 
France, England still stood for peace. The following 
extracts from the speech make these things plain: 

"In asking the House to agree to the resolution which 
Mr. Speaker has just read from the Chair, I do not pro- 
pose, because I do not think it is in any way necessary, 
to traverse the ground again which was covered by my 
Right Hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary* two or three 
nights ago. He stated — and I do not think any of the 
statements he made are capable of answer and certainly 
have not yet been answered — ^the grounds upon which, 
with the utmost reluctance and with infinite regret, Flis 
Majesty's government have been compelled to put this 
country in a state of war with what for many years, and 
indeed, generations past, has been a friendly power. But, 
Sir, the papers which have since been presented to Par- 
liam.ent, and which are now in the hands of the hon. 
Members, will, I think, show how strenuous, how unre- 
mitting, how persistent, even when the last glimmer of 
hope seemed to have faded away, were the efforts of 
my right hon. Friend to secure for Europe an honor- 
able and a lasting peace. Every one knows in the great 
crisis which occurred last year in the east of Europe, it 
was largely if not mainly, by the acknowledgment of 
all Europe due to the steps taken by my right hon. 
Friend that the area of the conflict was limited, and that 
so far as the great Powers are concerned, peace was 
maintained. If his efforts upon this occasion have, un- 
happily, been less successful, I am certain this House 
and the country, and I will add posterity and history, will 
accord to him what is, after all, the best tribute that can 
be paid to any statesman : that, never derogating for an 
instant or by an inch from the honor and interests of his 
own country, he has striven, as few men have striven, to 



* Sir Edward Grey. 



76 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

maintain and preserve the greatest interest of all coun- 
tries — universal peace. These papers, which are now in 
the hands of hon. Members, show something more 
than that. They show what were the terms which were 
offered to us in exchange for our neutrality. I trust that 
not only the Members of this House, but all our fellow- 
subjects everywhere, will read the communications, will 
read, learn and mark the communications which passed 
only a week ago to-day between Berlin and London in 
this matter. The terms by which it was sought to buy 
our neutrality are contained in the communication made 
by the Gernian Chancellor to Sir Edward Goschen on 
the 29th of July, No. 85 of the published Paper. I think 
I must refer to them for a moment. After referring to 
the state of things as between Austria and Russia, Sir 
Edward Goschen goes on: — 

'He then proceeded to make the following strong bid 
for British neutrality. He said that it was clear, so far 
as he was able to judge the main principle which gov- 
erned British policy, that Great Britain would never 
stand by and allow France to be crushed in any conflict 
there might be. That, however, was not the object at 
which Germany aimed. Provided that neutrality of Great 
Britain were certain, every assurance would be given to 
the British government that the Imperial government' — 
let the House observe these words — 'aimed at no terri- 
torial acquisition at the expense of France, should they 
prove victorious in any war that might ensue.' 

Sir Edward Goschen proceeded to put a very perti- 
nent question : — 

T questioned his Excellency about the French colo- 
nies'— 

What are the French colonies ? They mean every part 
of the dominions and possessions of France outside the 
geographical area of Europe — 

— 'and he said that he was unable to give a similar 
undertaking in that respect.' 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 11 

Let me come to what, in my mind, personally, has 
always been the crucial and almost the governing con- 
sideration, namely, the position of the small States: 

'As regards Holland, however. His Excellency said 
that so long as Germany's adversaries respected the 
integrity and neutrality of the Netherlands, Germany 
was ready to give His Majesty's government an assur- 
ance that she would do likewise.' 

Then we come to Belgium : 

Tt depended upon the action of France what opera- 
tions Germany might be forced to enter upon in Belgium, 
but, when the war was over, Belgian integrity would 
be respected if she had not sided against Germany.' 

Let the House observe the distinction between those 
two cases. In regard to Holland it was not only inde- 
pendence and integrity but also neutrality; but in regard 
to Belgium, there was no mention of neutrality at all, 
nothing but an assurance that after the war came to an 
end the integrity of Belgium would be respected. Then 
His Excellency added : — 

'Ever since he had been Chancellor the object of his 
policy had been to bring about an understanding with 
England. He trusted these assurances' — the assurances 
I have read out to the House — 'might form the basis 
of that understanding which he so much desired.' 

What does that amount to ? Let me just ask the House. 
I do so, not with the object of inflaming passion, cer- 
tainly not with the object of exciting feeling against 
Germany, but I do so to vindicate and make clear the 
position of the British government in this matter. What 
did that proposal amount to ? In the first place, it meant 
this : That behind the back of France — they were not 
made a party to these communications — we should have 
given, if we had assented to that, a free license to Ger- 
many to annex, in the event of a successful war, the 
whole of the extra European dominions and possessions 
of France. What did it mean as regards Belgium ? When 
she addressed, as she has addressed in these last few days, 



78 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

her moving appeal to us to fulfill our solemn guarantee 
of her neutrality, what reply should we have given? 
What reply should we have given to that Belgian appeal ? 
We should have been obliged to say that, without her 
knowledge, we had bartered away to the power threaten- 
ing her our obligation to keep our plighted word. The 
House has read, and the country has read, of course, in 
the last few hours, the most pathetic appeal addressed 
by the King of Belgium, and I do not envy the man who 
can read that appeal with an unmoved heart. Belgium 
are fighting and losing their lives. What would have 
been the position of Great Britain to-day in the face 
of that spectacle if we had assented to this infamous 
proposal? Yes, and what are we to get in return for 
the betrayal of our friends and the dishonor of our obli- 
gations? What are we to get in return? A promise — 
nothing more ; a promise as to what Germany would do 
in certain eventualities ; a promise, be it observed---! am 
sorry to have to say it, but it must be put upon record — 
given by a power which was at that very moment an- 
nouncing its intention to violate its own treaty and invit- 
ing us to do the same. I can only say, if we had dallied 
or temporized, we, as a government, should have covered 
ourselves with dishonor, and we should have betrayed 
the interests of this country, of which we are trustees, 
and I am glad, I think the country will be glad, to turn to 
the reply which my right hon. Friend made, and of which 
I will read to the House two of the more salient pas- 
sages. This document. No. 101 of my Paper, puts on 
record a week ago the attitude of the British government, 
and, as I believe, of the British people. My right hon. 
Friend says : — 

'His Majesty's government cannot for a moment enter- 
tain the Chancellor's proposal that they should bind 
themselves to neutrality on such terms. What he asks 
us in eflfect is to engage to stand by while French colonies 
are taken if France is beaten, so long as Germany does 
not take French territory as distinct from the colonies. 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 79 

From the material point of view' — my right hon. 
Friend, as he always does, used very temperate language 
— 'such a proposal is unacceptable, for France, without 
further territory in Europe being taken from her, could 
be so crushed as to lose her position as a great Power, 
and become subordinate to German policy.' 

That is the material aspect. But he proceeded : 

'Altogether apart from that, it would be a disgrace 
for us to make this bargain with Germany at the expense 
of France, a disgrace from which the good name of this 
country would never recover. The Chancellor also in 
effect asks us to bargain away whatever obligation or 
interest we have as regards the neutrality of Belgium. 
We could not entertain that bargain either.' 

He then says : 

'We must preserve our full freedom to act as cir- 
cumstances may seem to us to require.' 

And he added, I think, in sentences which the House 
will appreciate: 

'You should . . . add most earnestly that the one 
way of maintaining the good relations between England 
and Germany is that they should continue to work to- 
gether to preserve the peace of Europe. . . . For 
that object this government will work in that way with 
all sincerity and good will. 

'If the peace of Europe can be presented and the pres- 
ent crisis safely passed, my own endeavor will be to pro- 
mote some arrangement to whirh Germany could be a 
party, bv which she could be assured that no aggressive 
or hostile policy would be pursued against her or her 
allies by France, Russia, and ourselves, jointly or 
separately. I have desired this and worked for it' — the 
?tatem,ent was never more true — 'as far as I could, 
through the last Balkan crisis, and Germany having a 
corresponding object, our relations sensibly imioroved. 
The idea has hitherto been too TTtonian to form the sub- 
ject of definite proposals, but if this present crisis, so 



80 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

much more acute than any that Europe has gone through 
for generations, be safely passed, I am hopeful that 
the relief and reaction which will follow may make pos- 
sible some more definite rapprochement between the 
Powers than has been possible hitherto.' 

That document, in my opinion, states clearly, in tem- 
perate and convincing language, the attitude of this 
government. Can any one who reads it fail to appreciate 
the tone of obvious sincerity and earnestness which 
underlies it; can any one honestly doubt that the govern- 
ment of this country in spite of great provocation — and 
I regard the proposals made to us as proposals which we 
might have thrown aside without consideration and al- 
most without answer — can any one doubt that in spite 
of great provocation the right hon. Gentleman, who 
had already earned the title— and no one ever more 
deserved it — of Peace Maker of Europe, persisted to 
the very last moment of the last hour in that beneficent 
but unhappily frustrated purpose. I am entitled to 
say, and I do so on behalf of this country — I speak not 
for a party, I speak for the country as a whole — that we 
made every effort any government could possibly make 
for peace. But this war has been forced upon us. What 
is it we are fighting for? Everyone knows, and no one 
knows better than the government the terrible incal- 
culable suffering, economic, social, personal and political, 
which war, and especially a war between the Great Pow- 
ers of the World must entail. There is no man amongst 
us sitting upon this bench in these trying days — more 
trying perhaps than any body of statesmen for a hundred 
years have had to pass through — there is not a man 
amongst us who has not, during the whole of that time, 
had clearly before his vision the almost unequalled suffer- 
ing which war, even in a just cause, must bring about, 
not only to the people who are for the moment living 
in this country and in the other countries of the world, 
but to posterity and to the whole prospects of European 
civilization. Every step we took we took with that vision 
before our eyes, and with a sense of responsibility which 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 81 

it is impossible to describe. Unhappily, if in spite of all 
our efforts to keep the peace, and with that full and over- 
powering consciousness of the result, if the issue be de- 
cided in favor of war, we have nevertheless thought it to 
be the duty as well as the interest of this country to go 
to war, the House may be well assured it was because 
we believe, and I am certain the country will believe, we 
are unsheathing our sword in a just cause. 

If I am asked what we are fighting for I reply in two 
sentences. In the first place, to fulfill a solemn inter- 
national obligation, an obligation which, if it had been 
entered into between private persons in the ordinary con- 
cerns of life, would have been regarded as an obligation 
not only of law, but of honor, which no self-respecting 
man could possibly have repudiated. I say, secondly, we 
are fighting to vindicate the principle which, in these days, 
when force, material force, sometimes seems to be the 
dominant influence and factor in the development of man- 
kind, we are fighting to vindicate the principle that small 
nationalities are not to be crushed, in defiance of inter- 
national good faith, by the arbitrary will of a strong 
and over-mastering Power. I do not believe any nation 
ever entered into a great controversy — and this is one 
of the greatest history will ever know — with a clearer 
conscience and stronger conviction that it is fighting, not 
for aggression, not for the maintenance even of its own 
selfish interest, but that it is fighting in defence of prin- 
ciples, the maintenance of which is vital to the civilization 
of the world. With a full convicton, not only of the 
wisdom and justice, but of the obligations which lay upon 
us to challenge this great issue, we are entering into the 
struggle. Let us now make sure that all the resources, not 
only of. this United Kingdom, but of the vast Empire of 
which it is the center, shall be thrown into the scale, 
and it is that that object may be adequately secured, 
that I am now about to ask this committee — to make the 
very unusual demand upon it — to give the government a 
Vote of Credit of £100,000,000." 



82 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

It is needless to say that this speech was received with 
great enthusiasm ; so great was the enthusiasm that some 
of the peace advocates in ParHament felt saddened at the 
seeming joy at going to war with Germany. These men 
had been working with Germans for years in establishing 
goodwill between the two nations. They believed that 
there was no quarrel between the Germans and the Eng- 
lish people, that the German people had been plunged 
into this war by a military caste; that we ought to be 
sad at having to fight them rather than joyful. The 
speeches made to this efifect by our own friends, the Eng- 
lish Chairman and the English Secretary of the Confer- 
ence, Mr. J. Allen Baker, and Rt. Hon. W. H. Dick- 
inson were so brave and put this feeling so splendidly 
that I quote them here. I quote them from the Blue 
Book just as they were given, retaining the interruptions 
and all, that my readers may see how they were received : 

"Mr. Dickinson : I hope that the House will allow 
me to .say a few words on this occasion, and for this 
reason, that for many years I have worked with other 
friends of mine for friendship between ourselves and 
the German nation, and I happened only last week to be 
sitting at the table with French and German and other 
individuals whose object was to assist in the promotion 
of friendship between nations. But I do not rise to refer 
to that now, nor do I rise in order to criticize the govern- 
ment. I believe myself, from reasons and facts which 
came to my knowledge in Germany, that this war will 
be handed down to history as having been caused in the 
same way as every other war has been caused, by a 
mutual misunderstanding. (Hon. Members: 'Divide.') 
But I do not want to raise that question at the present 
moment; I only rise because I hope that the House will 
give me the opportunity to say a few words upon the 
present situation. (Hon. Members: 'No!' and 'Order!') 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 83 

This is not the time — (Hon. Members: 'Hear, hear!') — 
for criticism or recrimination ; we are in war, and we 
have to go forward with that war, and, personally, as 
is the case with every man here, my vote and my voice, 
and every action of which I would be capable, will be 
given to the support of our soldiers and sailors in this 
conflict. It is for this reason that I ask to be allowed to 
sa}^ a few words upon this occasion. Many of us have 
been laboring for years to bring about an extended 
friendship between the English and German people, and 
with great respect I venture to think that we have suc- 
ceeded. The sentiment of the mass of the German people 
towards us has improved enormously. (Hon Members: 
'Agreed.') 

The Chairman (Mr. Whitley) : Hon. Member 
should listen to the Hon. Member. He is entitled to be 
heard. 

Mr. Dickinson : But the great obstacle that we have 
experienced has been the existence of a great and power- 
ful military caste. A weapon which was formed for the 
purpose of defence has become an uncontrolled instrument 
of offence now in that country. It is a class that lives 
for war, that battens on the lust of aggrandizement, and 
is always aiming at and preparing for war. It has no 
regard for men's rights, and no respect for international 
rules, and its motto is that 'Might is right' ! That caste 
has acquired such strength that it controls not only the 
feelings and thoughts of the people, but even has too 
great an influence upon the wishes of its sovereign, and 
Europe is now witnessing the results of the curse of 
conscription. This war has been, of course, foreseen, not 
only by hon. Gentlem.en opposite, but by those who 
have been working for peace as between Germany 
and ourselves, and it is for that very reason that we 
have labored to achieve some success in that direction. 
Our efforts have not altogether failed. They have not 
failed forever, and later on we think we may still be able 
to establish that friendship between the two peoples. That 



84 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

is one of the reasons why I believe that Germany will 
be beaten in this great conflict, because it will ring the 
knell of the great military supremacy of those who rule 
in that country. We are fighting that military caste, and 
not the people of Germany. The people of Germany have 
had nothing to do with this war. Of course, it is true 
that they are enthusiastic for it. I have traveled through 
the towns of Germany, and have seen enthusiasm similar 
to that which is to be seen in our streets now, due to 
war fever, and also to the still more laudable sentiment 
of sympathy with the men who are going out to fight 
for their country. But the people of Germany have no 
knowledge of why they are fighting this war, and in 
particular why they are fighting against Great Britain. 
They will, I am sorry to say, not read these debates. 
They will be told thai it is all our fault. 

But I do think that, as far as we possibly can, we 
ought to tell them what is the true reason why Great 
Britain has interfered in this war, and we may hope 
that, if we can win, we may lay down such conditions as 
will destroy that military supremacy which has brought 
Europe to the brink of destruction. (Interruption.) I 
want, with great respect to the House — I do not know 
why they do not listen — to make three suggestions. For 
one thing, I would urge very strongly that we should not 
lose our heads and lose all feelings of consideration for 
the Germans who are among us, many of whom have 
nothing but loyal and friendly feelings toward us. In 
the second place, I wish to ask that we shall watch every 
opportunity of bringing about a satisfactory termination 
to the war. It will be a war involving great suffering 
and causing a torrent of blood in Europe, and 
therefore we should take every possible opportunity 
of seeing whether some arrangement cannot be 
arrived at not to carry it further than necessary. 
And lastly, we ought to be prepared with some 
plan of settlement. We ought to know exactly, and 
we ought to let Germany feel that we know exactly, 
what we are really fighting for. We are fighting for the 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 85 

status quo. We are not fighting for any territorial- 
changes in Europe, one way or the other. I know the 
feehngs of Germany. I know that their one fear is the 
possibility of a strong combination over the Teutonic 
nations, and we should do our utmost to see that that 
result does not accrue from the war. I wish to say these 
few words to the House, because I feel that we are enter- 
ing upon a terrible war. When that war comes to an 
end, the problem will be only just begun. We have a 
task during the war, and at the end of the war it should 
be understood that our objects and intentions are as 
honest as those which we entertain at the present moment. 

Mjii. Allen Baker : I should like to say that I heartily 
endorse the remarks which have been made by the last 
two or three speakers. My hon. Friend, the Member 
for York (Mr. Rowntree), has raised a point of very 
great importance, and it is one which came under my 
notice little more than an hour ago, when I was address- 
ing a number of workmen whom I employ. I said to 
them in regard to reservists who had already gone to do 
what they believed to be their duty, that they would have 
their positions safeguarded till they returned from per- 
forming that duty. Any of them who may be required 
by the government for service as engineers, as well as 
others, I stated, would be treated in the same way. I 
want entirely and heartily to endorse the words of my 
hon. Friend, the Member for Cockermouth (Sir 
Wilfrid Lawson). He has deplored, as I am sure we 
must all deplore, that the country has been, I suppose, 
dragged into or forced into this unhappy position, and 
that we are now at war. I do believe that had we had a 
different policy in the past we might have prevented this 
war. We have had offers and offers, again and again, 
from the great nation of Germany, saying that they want 
to be close friends with us, that thev wanted to cultivate 
our friendship. In supportin)? the ideas and sentiments 
expressed by mv hon. Friend, the Member for North 
St. Pancras (Mr. Dickinson), I believe heartily, from 



86 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

intimate knowledge of the people of Germany, that the 
mass of them, including many in high station and posi- 
tions, have been entirely against this war. They have 
been, and are, friendly to us in this country, but they 
have been overborne by the military class who are domi- 
nating the position, and who have caused this war. They 
fear, and they fear not without reason, the great Slav 
population, who are double the number of the Germans, 
and who have been arming and preparing for this con- 
flict for years. To Germany, with enemies right and left, 
east and west, it is a matter of life atid death. They feel 
that they are in a desperate position, and, if you could 
realize their position, I think you would see that there 
is very much to be said for the hasty action they have 
taken. (Hon. Members: 'No, no!') They felt that the 
only opportunity they possessed was by striking quickly. 
(Hon. Members: 'Oh, oh!') I say that they have been 
forced into this position. (Hon. Members: 'No!') I 
believe they are entering into this war with deep regret, 
and certainly, on the part of the masses of the people, 
with great friendship towards us. I have been pained, 
most deeply pained, to hear the almost laudatory cheers, 
and to hear sentiments of gladness — ^almost of joy — 
that have been expressed by different Members on both 
sides of the House — (Hon. Members: 'No, no!') — 

The Chairman : I am sure the hon. Member 
would not like to make any reflection on the motives of 
his colleagues in this House. 

Mr. a. Baker: If the House will permit me to say so, 
the impression I gathered was — (Hon. Members: 'With- 
draw!') I certainly withdraw any imputation against 
any individual member, but I gathered from the cheers 
that went up, and they also gave me the impression that 
many in this House were going into this awful business 
with a satisfaction. (An Hon. Member: 'We are as 
sorry as you are!') 

The Chairman : If aspersions of that kind were 
made, they might have to be made from two points of 
view, and that is most undesirable. 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 87 

Mr. a. Baker: Perhaps T may be permitted to put 
it this way. In the enthusiasm of loyalty there are ex- 
pressions often used that make one almost weep with 
sadness to see with what alacrity we are ready to go and 
sla}^ — (Hon. Members: 'No, no!' and 'Sit down!') 

The Chairman : I must appeal to the Hon. Member 
to give other Members of the House the same credit for 
sincerity which the whole House has always accorded 
to him. 

Mr. a. Baker : I entirely withdraw anything against 
any hon. Member, but, having just passed during the last 
thirty hours through the country where war is about to 
be waged, and then coming to this country and finding 
the same thing in our streets, and already almost we see 
the spirit of 'Mafficking.' (Hon. Members: 'No, no!' 
'Withdraw!' 'Sit down!') That is the impression which 
I have gained, and the point I wish to make is this, that 
we are entering on one of the most horrible acts in this 
and other countries of Europe that will have effects and 
results that we can in no way at the present moment 
estimate, war is of such a horrible character with the 
present weapons and with the machinery of slaughter to 
mow down men. I do not intend to Vote against this 
Vote. In entering on this war it should be with feelings 
of the deepest sadness, and with the prayer that it may 
soon come to an end, and with the desire that a gener- 
ous and lasting peace may soon be agreed to." 

It was interesting to note the fact that, at the very 
moment when England was entering upon the war, 
from many sources came the appeal to Englishmen to be 
both calm and just. 

A specially convened meeting of the General Com- 
mittee 'of the National Council of Evangelical Free 
Churches, held at the Memorial Hall August 5th, adopted 
the following resolution : 



88 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

"The crime and horror of a universal war has fallen 
upon European civilization. It is useless to seek nicely 
to apportion blame. Our first duty is to humble our- 
selves before God and to wait upon Him. 

"It is a matter for thankfulness that the efforts of 
Britain, though unhappily unsuccessful, were put forth 
strenuously and to the last moment on behalf of peace, 
and that our intervention has been determined by regard 
for weaker nations, and for the sanctity of the treaties 
which safeguard them. 

"In these conditions the Council "appeals to the Free 
Churches of this country to realize their high responsi- 
bilities and to discharge them faithfully. 

"The Churches should arrange a service of daily united 
prayer that the nation may be Divinely guided, and that 
peace may speedily be restored. 

"The duty rests upon the Churches steadily to foster 
those more generous and humane sentiments which war 
so ruthlessly destroys. 

"The Churches should steadily inculcate the duties of 
self-restraint and mutual consideration. In particular, 
they must denounce all endeavors to snatch selfish advan- 
tages through either greed or panic, and, above all, must 
emphasize the importance of general self-sacrifice in the 
interests of the poor, upon whom the worst hardships 
of the war threaten to fall. 

"The Churches must be prepared to co-operate at once 
v/ith the Government and with the civic authorities in 
administering to any distress that may arise. 

"They must be continually on the watch in order that 
they may ofifer, as occasion may arise, counsels of wis- 
dom and moderation." 

The following directions for Englishmen appeared in 
the London papers of August 6th and attracted much 
attention : 

First and foremost. — Keep your heads. Be calm. Go 
about your ordinary business quietly and soberly. Do 
not indulge in excitement or foolish demonstrations. 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 89 

Secondly. — Think of others more than you are wont 
to do. Think of your duty to your neighbor. Think of 
the common weal. 

Try to contribute your share by doing your duty in 
your own place and your own sphere. Be abstemious 
and economical. Avoid waste. 

Do not store goods and create an artificial scarcity to 
the hurt of others. Remember that is an act of mean 
and selfish cowardice. 

Do not hoard gold. Let it circulate. Try to make 
things easier, not more difficult. 

Remember those who are worse off than yourself. Pay 
punctually what you owe, especially to your poorest 
creditors, such as washerwomen and charwomen. 

If you are an employer think of your employed. Give 
them work and wages as long as you can, and work 
short time rather than close down. 

If you are employed remember the difficulties of your 
employer. Instead of dwelling on your own privations 
think of the infinitely worse state of those who live at 
the seat of war and are not only thrown out of work 
but deprived of all they possess. 

Do what you can to cheer and encourage our soldiers. 
Gladly help any organization for their comfort and wel- 
fare. 

Explain to the young and the ignorant what war is, 
and why we have been forced to wage it. 

One of the finest utterances on peace we have ever 
seen was the Message of the Friends "to men and women 
of goodwill," which was sent out on the evening of 
August 7th. It is printed in full in the Appendix. * 



* See Appendix VH. 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE COLLAPSE OF CIVILIZATION 

Has civilization collapsed in Europe? Has Christianity 
been thrown to the dogs, and have the nations gone mad ? 
In a moment, almost without premonition, millions of men 
on the Continent have become frenzied, and with wild 
eyes, with bestial thirst for blood, and with savage yells 
are rushing to rip their brothers' bowels out. Women 
are rushing from besieged and burning cities with tiny 
babies in their arms, and little, cold, hungry, tired boys 
and girls, hardly old enough to walk, trying to keep up. 
Poverty stares millions in the face — poverty not only dur- 
ing this war, but during long years to come. Thousands 
of women are to be widowed, millions of little children 
are to be left fatherless. Natural affections are even now 
blotted out and their places being taken by strange, cruel 
lusts and passions. The virtue of women will be a free 
commodity for all soldiers. Drunkenness has already 
spread throughout these lands in a mad orgy. All indus- 
try will be ruined. Thousands of farms and villages will 
be laid waste. Thousands of schools and churches will 
be blown up. Hatreds will be engendered which will 
keep Europe irritated fifty years after the peace of ex- 
haustion shall have come. The commerce of the world 
will be upset. The general morality of Europe will be 
lowered to a point where the churches will have to begin 
all over again and work a hundred years to restore it. 
Already thousands of atheists have been made. Almost 
every other man we have met in Europe this last week 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 91 

has shook his head with sadness and said : "What's the 
good of Christianity if it cannot stop this sort of thing." 
It is as if the Devil and all his angels had taken complete 
possession of Europe. 

And what is it all about? Nobody knows. The Ger- 
man people do not know why they are fighting the French 
and English and Russians. The French people do not 
know why, suddenly, without a week's warning, they 
were fighting the Germans. The English people had no 
more desire to go to war with Germans than have we in 
America, and yet with hardly a week's notice they are 
crossing the Channel to shoot their brothers, with whom, 
only five days before, they had been assembled in a medi- 
cal conference and a peace conference, brothers knowing 
no nationality, only kindly comradeship, com^mon good- 
will toward all men. Who started it ? No one knows who 
originally started it, for no one knows what despicable 
intrigues have been going on in one of two governments 
for years. All one knov/s is that Austria, most cowardly 
and reckless of nations, knowing she would plunge all 
Europe into arms, to get revenge for a crime committed 
by an individual, who should have been punished as an 
individual, attacks a weak, impoverished nation, and Ger- 
many, instead of rebuking her, evidently stands behind; 
while, of course, Russia, friend of Servia, begins to 
mobilize her troops to befriend Servia. Then Germany 
has to mobilize. Then, of course, France gets frightened 
and mobilizes her army. England tries to bring the 
nations together for friendly conference, but Austria 
will net listen. England remains neutral to the last. 
Then Germany goes crazy and begins recklessly to violate 
all treaties of neutrality, and seemingly is anxious to drag 



92 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

England into the war against her. And here we have the 
sight in the twentieth century of Christ's Churches of 
eight nations doing their best to annihilate one another, 
while at the same time the good people in every one of 
these nations, previous to the sudden spread of the war 
fever, bore no illwill to the good people of the other 
nations — indeed, had much goodwill. 

We have just come through it all and know whereof 
we speak. Right on the eve of conflict, while all Europe 
was mobilizing its troops, with the sound of German 
soldiers marching off to war, eighty men, including Ger- 
mans, English, French, Swiss, Scandinavians, Bulgarians 
and Americans, sat together in the parlors of the Insel 
Hotel at Constance, Germany, praying, while the other 
citizens of these countries were preparing to fight. There 
was no reason in the world why all the rest of the Ger- 
mans, French and English should not have been praying 
instead of fighting, except that they who began the fight- 
ing were not Christians, while those who were at Con- 
stance were. No power in heaven or earth could have 
involved the French and German delegates at Constance 
in a war. They had passed beyond the war stage into 
the kingdom of God. The sessions of this Peace Con- 
ference of the Churches went right on while the war 
clouds gathered, the war only giving intensity to their 
purpose to work harder to persuade the nations of their 
folly. (And there was considerable feeling that it would 
be easy to do this after this awful cataclysm was over.) 
German, French and English delegates all pledged last- 
ing friendship to one another, and declared that when 
this nightmare of the nations should pass they would 
come together in the same old bonds. Perhaps the only 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 93 

solution of this awful curse of nations is the increase of 
these men of goodwill to be the majority in each nation 
and to have the power of government in their hands. 

These Christians, these men of goodwill, these men 
who put Christ and brotherly love above revenge and 
chauvenistic nationalism, found they must leave Con- 
stance early in the morning of the day when they had 
hoped to continue their conference. It was the last day 
on which the German government could guarantee the 
safe passage of the English and American delegates 
across Germany. Wiith not one dissenting vote the 
Conference voted not to dissolve, not to stop crying good- 
ivill amidst the clamor for revenge, not to cease saying 
Christ must ultimately pre7'ail although all Europe seemed 
deserting Him. It was resolved that the congress con- 
tinue its sessions in London two days after. The Ger- 
mans and French could not go, having been forbidden 
to leave their countries by this time. But the Scandi- 
navians and others went along with the English and 
American delegates. 

This trip across Germany on the eve of war was so 
remarkable and so full of indication of what real war 
would soon be that I may be pardoned if I refer to it 
here, although I have described our experiences at 
length in previous chapters. We were under the special 
protection of the Kaiser and had two special cars put at 
our disposal. After a long journey lasting all day and all 
night we were dropped at the Dutch border (Goch) on the 
way to Flushing. But what a day ! How it wrung one's 
heart! How it made our American delegates sick of the 
very thought of war forever ! We saw all the young men 
and boys being driven like sheep into pens to be sent 



94 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

off to kill men they did not know and with whom 
they had no quarrel. We saw mothers and wives weep- 
ing at the departure of the men, and little children crying, 
although they knew nothing of what it was all about. 
We saw men go crazy at this parting and have to be put 
in cords and held. We saw great crowds drunk with 
brandy, and howling "To Hell with Germany" or "To 
Hell with France." We saw French soldiers try to pull a 
German out of a train window, while he clung to his two 
little babies that he was trying to get into Switzerland, 
We saw Germans yank a Russian and his wife out of a 
train, and so frighten the wife that her little baby could 
not nurse for two days. We saw swarms of Germans try- 
ing to get out of France with their poor wives and babies, 
with no one to help and with French soldiers jeering at 
them and threatening them. Some of our party saw the 
Germans stand four Servians up against a wall and shoot 
them right down because they refused to assume German 
arms. We saw industry stopped, and carts full of mere 
boys packed into freight cars with horses, and bundled of^ 
to the frontier. It was all prophetic of the awful sufifer- 
ing v/bich was to come. But what we saw, in the complete 
degradation of all the finer human. Christian instincts 
on every hand, made our hearts bleed. It was impossible 
to believe. Even now that we are back in America, with 
the newsboys shouting every hour the news of many 
thousands slain, it is almost impossible to believe it is 
not all a dream. 

What does it all mean? It means many things. First 
of all it means that there is something the matter with 
our Christianity, or else that we are not presenting it 
truly. For it seems to have no power whatever over men 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 95 

or nations when any real provocative of men's passions 
comes. Most of these millions of men who are now 
drunk with lust of killing, and hoarsely shouting for 
their brothers' blood, have been calling themselves 
Christians and have been taught in Christian schools 
and churches. And in a day it, is all forgotten, and 
if one who remembers dares suggest, as a few did 
suggest in the various parliaments and in the press, that 
we remember our religion, he is hooted down. Is it that 
the human heart is too desperately wicked for even 
Christianity to control it v/hen the deepest passions of all, 
revenge and lust of blood, are aroused? Is it that it can 
find only a few in each community — which is all it has 
yet done — whom it can fully regenerate? Or is it that 
we have been concerned too much with dealing with 
those sins which are more easily uprooted and controlled, 
and have neglected to uproot those awful, fiendish, de- 
moniacal passions that burst forth at such a time as this? 
Or have we in our endeavor to inculcate righteousness 
in our personal dealing with our brother of our own land 
neglected altogether to eradicate from men the beast 
which such a crisis as this reveals as only slumbering. 
For the thousands of men we saw howling in all the cities 
of Europe were not men any longer. They had becom.e 
beasts. The beast could even be seen in their eyes. They 
howled for only three things : drink, women, and blood 
of their brothers. Perhaps there has got to be a wholly 
new presentation of Christianity before these things can 
be stopped. Perhaps we have got really to teach what 
Christ himself taught, namely, that love of all Christians 
for each other, all men of goodwill for one another, 
must transcend race, nationality and every other bond. 



96 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

We have never dared preach this,, although it was con- 
tinually on Christ's lips. He even went further, and said 
it must transcend family ties. It would be as impossible 
for one Christian to kill another, did we really believe in 
Christ and accept His Gospel, as it would be for a man 
to kill his mother. Another thing which we think every 
American of the fifty who got this first sight of war has 
come to feel is that our religion has broken down in its 
psychology, that our Gospel has been addressed to a 
man who does not exist, that our sermons have been 
preached to an imaginary man. We have been preach- 
ing to men as highly respectable, on the whole good, 
some of them saintly, while as a matter of fact this has 
been only seeming. They have seemed this because great 
temptations have not roused them from their sleep. No 
one who came across Europe within the last month can 
ever hold this easy faith again. Men are beasts; cruel, 
lustful, revengeful, ravening, just as the Gospel repre- 
sents them. There are exceptions, but in most of us 
the beast lies just below the surface, and nothing but a 
regeneration which shall sweep through men's souls as a 
wind from heaven can make them clean. There is no 
hope for Europe until it is seen that men's souls need 
a power to cleanse them from the dominion of the beast, 
far greater than either the church or ethical culture is at 
present providing. 

In the second place it means the complete collapse of 
the present political order. Whatever may be the out- 
come of this terrible Armageddon, one thing is settled 
forever — that the present political and international order 
is utterly inadequate to either secure justice or preserve 
the peace. For years these nations have been piling up 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 97 

vast armaments, Germany, Austria, France, Eng- 
land and Russia, "to preserve the peace." This is what 
they all have said — -and, we have no doubt, said it sin- 
cerely. So each one has armed, each one in a mad rush 
to outdo the other. None have wanted war — but war 
was inevitable as an outcome. It will be always so. 
Many have foreseen it. Only a year ago two of the best 
known Englishmen, Canon Henson and Alfred Noyes, 
told Americans that if this arming went on the universal 
slaughter was sure to come. It has come. It is the only 
logical thing that could come. Nations that are bristling 
with arms are always going to fight. All Europe is learn- 
ing this lesson to-day through an awful experience, but 
perhaps it is the only way men without insight could be 
taught. Never again can any man say "the way to get 
peace is to prepare for war." He can say "the way to 
protect yourself is to arm," perhaps, for it is impossible 
to see how any one nation in Europe can cease to arm 
so long as others do. Neither Germany nor Austria can 
any longer be trusted, both of them having broken the 
most sacred treaties without a qualm. But that the way 
to get justice or peace is to prepare for war has been 
dissipated forever. Armaments mean zvar. That is now 
settled forever, and is no longer worth debating. On the 
■other hand, any disarmament must be simultaneous. We 
found many statesmen, with whom we talked in Europe, 
feeling that Europe will have her faith in arms, and 
iron, and powder as the basis of civiHzation, justice and 
peace, so rudely shattered, that they will be willing to 
come together and consider whether it is not time to go on 
to the new basis of law, justice, international co-operation 
and armaments reduced to a police basis. This is the 



98 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

point every American should urge upon Europe in this 
hour when she will be impressionable to this gospel. 

In the third place, the kind of patriotism the nations of 
Europe have been cherishing is discredited also, and 
proved a source of infinite misery even to the country 
toward which it is directed. This whole miserable busi- 
ness has arisen out of a perverted patriotism, a race con- 
sciousness raised to the power of madness. It was a 
Servian "patriot," a devotee of "Greater Servia," who 
threw the bomb that stirred Austria to revenge. All 
through Europe there is this patriotism which makes a 
god of one's country and declares there is no other god, 
which is forever imputing intrigues and schemes to other 
countries, which goes into fervors about one's own coun- 
try that exasperates other countries, which would clamor 
for little rights for one's own country and bring on a 
war, regardless of the effect it would have upon six or 
eight innocent countries, which puts love of country- 
above love of one's country being right, and which talks 
more about love of country than it does about love of God 
and all His children. This awful tragedy, beyond any- 
thing since Napoleon's day, is the result of this sort of 
patriotism. The time has come to lift this quality up 
into something high, noble and universal. We are glad 
the report of the Federal Council delegates at Constance 
to the churches of America emphasizes this need of Chris- 
tianizing patriotism. 

Finally, one thing even the blind can see lies at the 
root of all this calamity of the nations, and that is our 
neglect to preach the one truth on which any lasting 
order of justice or peace can be reared, nam.ely, that 
nations must be amenable to the same Christian ethics 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 99 

that govern the relationships of men. There can be no 
double standard of ethics in the kingdom of God. Right 
must be right and wrong be wrong throughout the whole 
universe of men. If it is wrong for men to steal, it is 
just as criminal for big nations to seize little ones. If 
it is wrong for men to murder, it is wrong for nations 
to kill and destroy weaker nations, or men in any nation. 
If it is unchristian for men to settle their disputes with 
their fists, it is wrong for nations to adjust their quarrels 
by iron fists on sea or land. If it is Christian for a man 
to negotiate on all questions with his brother in the svx^eet 
Christian spirit of forbearance, charity, even forgiveness, 
what else can be Christian for nations? We have not 
believed this, we have not preached it in our pulpits, 
nor taught it in our schools. We are going to learn it now 
in this year of agony. Every pulpit should reiterate it 
every week. 

We heard many saying, "This is God's way of accom- 
plishing some great thing." Let us be very careful how 
we say that. Man's wickedness is too apparent in it all. 
We are always too ready to impute our crimes and sins 
to God. It is much more likely that God is weeping in 
the heavens because we are killing the mem.bers of His 
family, His little babies, His sons and daughters — and all 
over nothing. That is the pity of it — all over nothing. 
No great principle at stake (except as England entered 
in to help the neutral nations), no holy cause to defend, 
no issue that can be of any value to the world, no gain 
that can come to any nation commensurate to the loss 
all will sustain. Conceived in intrigue and revenge, being 
waged in lust and furious hatreds — let us not impute 
any of it to the Father who loves all His children equally. 



CHAPTER IX. 
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAR? 

It is easy to say who is directly responsible. Anyone 
who will read "The White Book," published in London, 
August 8th,* and containing the full correspondence be- 
tween Sir Edward Grey and the European powers can see 
in a moment who brought on the war. The mad Servian 
boy who killed the Austrian Archduke lit the fire. 
Austria, by taking revenge with arms instead of laying 
the matter before a tribunal, fanned the flames. Then 
Russia began to mobilize, and that frightened Germany 
out of her wits and she began to mobilize. But all this 
time England was doing her best, through Sir Edward 
Grey, to restrain both Russia and Germany from mobiliz- 
ing and to persuade Germany to use her influence to bring 
Austria and Russia together for a conversation. Then 
France began to mobilize from fear of Germany. But 
France joined with England in talking peace to the end, 
and at no time was anxious for war. Just when Sir 
Edward Grey's extraordinary efforts to bring Austria 
and Russia together for a conversation with regard to 
Servia had some promise of success, Germany issued her 
arbitrary ultimatum to Russia, without consulting other 
nations, setting an impossible time limit. Then, when at 
last Sir Edward Grey's heroic efforts seemed about to 
be crowned with success, inasmuch as Austria and 
Russia agreed to meet in conference with the other 
powers — which would certainly have averted the terrible 

* Printed in full in the New York Times of August 23d. 

100 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 101 

war and filled all Europe with joy — lo! impossible to 
believe, Germany refused to enter this conference of 
the nations. There is no other conclusion to be drawn, 
as much as we regret to draw it, than this, that Germany 
not only precipitated the war, but desired it. There are 
many other things in "The White Book" which lead to 
this same conclusion, and we advise everyone who wants 
to see just exactly how this war originated to read this 
book. 

It was this refusal of Germany to enter the conference 
that dismayed Great Britain and first led the British 
people to believe that war was inevitable. It was also 
this refusal that called out the now famous message of 
■ Mr. Carnegie to the Neutrality League of London, which 
has been quoted on page sixty-one. 

But, although Germany is directly responsible for the 
war, all the nations must bear their share of the blame, 
and all people, even we in the United States. 

Every man in Europe who has urged armament, guns, 
militarism, the mailed fist, and force as the basis of civili- 
zation and as assurance of peace is to blame for this war. 
It has proved the great fallacy of the day, and the world 
is now seeing it. But it has been the fallacy of history, 
and intelligent people should have known this long ago 
and have put it in the junk heap of outworn things a 
hundred years ago. Every intelligent man in Europe has 
known since boyhood that the whole system was accursed 
of Satan and utterly contradictory to the sweet spirit of 
goodwill and love taught by his Christian religion, and 
he should have been getting his government on to this 
basis long ago. There is absolutely no hope for permanent 
peace in Europe under this present system of bristling 



102 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

armament. Did every man in America go about waving 
a great pistol in each hand, and with a dagger between 
his teeth in addition, our streets would be full of perpetual 
brawls. The same thing is true of nations. Every wise 
rran knew this thing must come sooner or later as he saw 
Germany, Russia, France and England arming, arming 
and arming! (Just as every wise man knew there was 
no danger of war between Canada and the United States 
beca-/se there were no arms upon the three thousand mile 
border line.) We say, every wise man knew that war 
would sooner or later come if this went on. And every 
man who urged it is to blame for this war. But the 
people of England, Russia and France have been equally 
guilty with Germany in trusting force instead of God, 
and in looking to guns for keeping the peace instead of 
seeking justice, charity, law, brotherhood, as guarantee 
of peace. 

Every man in Europe who has not been working for 
the creation of an international court and urging the 
nations to commit themselves to submitting their disputes 
to it has been helping on this war. Armaments were 
piling up and up ; the nations were groaning in their 
endeavor to surpass one another in powder, guns and 
knives. There was nothing under the heavens could 
stop it and save Europe from a war except the perfecting 
of this court. A good start was made. Two con- 
ferences had been held. Even the Kaiser — with many 
German sympathizers — had shown interest in it, and 
taken part in it, in spite of the protests of the Bernhardis 
and the rest of the military clique and believers in war. 
Real enthusiasm on the part of the leaders and people 
of England, France, Germany and the United States 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 103 

would have so perfected this machinery by this time that 
the war could have been averted. But the people lay 
supinely back on guns and powder — and now these very 
things have blown them all to pieces. Even in peace- 
loving England it has been hard to stir up any enthusiasm 
over a Third Hague Conference. Neither is the United 
States free from blame here. Everywhere in Europe we 
heard men saying : "Ah, if we only had our Hague Court 
and the nations committed to it, this thing might not have 
happened." "Yes," we always answered, "but what have 
you and your countrymen been doing to establish this 
court?" What have we in the United States been doing 
to thus prevent these wars? 

Among the things that keep the military system alive 
in Europe and make nations go on arming and arming 
are the suspicions one people have of another. There is 
one nation in Europe which by book and paper and 
even by official proclamation has been deliberately nur- 
turing this attitude of suspicion. One of these vile books 
inculcates the doctrine that every other nation is the 
enemy of the one to which it is addressed and is only 
waiting to invade it. It even puts the United States 
down among those to be distrusted, and says : "Beware 
of its peace talk. It is all buncombe." This book is a 
sort of Bible in the army of this particular country. This 
suspicion exists in a lesser degree in all European nations. 
Its end is what we are now witnessing in Europe. It was 
more directly responsible for the failure of Sir Edward 
Grey's efforts than anything else. There are those in 
the United States who would arouse it here toward 
Japan. These are the warmakers. Everyone, both here 
and in Europe, who encourages this suspicion — yes, even 



104 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

does not fight it and try to substitute that mutual trust 
between decent men of all nations, which is the essence 
of Christianity — is an abettor of this war and a breeder 
of wars yet to come. 

Who is responsible for the war? Just as the war was 
beginning to rage all over Europe, the news was received 
that Pope Pius X had died of grief brought on by the 
war. The thought of it overwhelmed him. During his 
last hours he brooded over it continually and bemoaned 
the impotence of the Church to prevent the cruel delug- 
ing of Europe with blood, pain, poverty, hatred and 
atheism. As I write the Cardinals are assemblying for 
the solemn Conclave in Rome, at which a successor to 
Pius X will be elected. They are also talking of send- 
ing out a plea to the rulers to cease from warring 
and to pursue peace again. It will have no force, 
but it is well that they should send it. The Right 
should always speak, even though it do so while 
bemg crucified. The resurrection is sure to come 
out of every Calvary. But here is our point: the 
poor Pope dies crying for peace ; the Cardinals are pray- 
ing for peace ; the Protestant churches are likewise rebuk- 
ing the nations, and in our own land are urging the 
President of the United States to offer mediation to the 
warring powers. But if the churches of Austria, France, 
Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and the United States 
had begun, say, only fifty years ago proclaiming the gospel 
of goodwill am.ong nations as a fundamental doctrine of 
Christianity, calling nations to account before the same 
bar of judgment as that to which they brought individ- 
uals, approving and rebuking them by the same stand- 
ards, war would probably have become impossible by 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 105 

this time. If the Church had universally begun preach- 
ing fifty years ago, that war has no more in common 
with Christianity than have drunkenness, adultery, 
murder, and lying, war would have, by this time, been 
held in something of that same horror in which good 
people hold these other things. If the Catholic Church 
had announced fifty years ago that any man who took 
the sword, be he Emperor or peasant, excepting in de- 
fense of his invaded country, or in defense of justice, 
would be excommunicated, there would be a great dif- 
ference in the attitude of men toward this foulest crime 
earth knows. If the Protestant churches had unani- 
mously taught that when man became a member of 
Christ's Church he arose into citizenship in a kingdom 
which knew no national or racial bonds, neither Greek, 
barbarian, nor Scythian, but his chief allegiance was to 
Jesus Christ and his closest tie was with all Christians 
— his real brothers — there would to-day be a sense of 
kinship among all Christians that would make war of 
Christian against Christian abhorrent. (Yet this is what 
we are witnessing to-day — Christians ripping Christians 
to pieces.) If the whole Church had stood as a rock 
against this entire business of armament and militarism 
— stood as those few stood in Switzerland last January 
when the "Conference of the Evangelical Churches" 
issued its remarkable appeal to the Christian churches 
of Europe — then there would have been none of this 
making every nation a huge, menacing powder factory 
ready to go off at the dropping of one match. If our 
churches had for fifty years been everywhere teaching 
their children the heroism of peace instead of the heroism 
of war, teaching that the good, great men were not the 



106 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

generals, the conquerors, the devastators, the ambitious, 
the destroyers, the warriors, but the good, great men were 
the saviors of the world, who, with Jesus Christ, were 
great in moral power, warriors in the realm of the spirit, 
while gentle, lovable, humane, mild, were the men who 
saved, gave, loved, blessed, cherished their fellow-men — 
if the Church had taught that the heroes of the spirit 
were the real heroes — their children would have looked 
on the men who slaughtered each other on fields of battle 
as now they look upon m.en who kill each other in brawls 
upon the street. 

But how has it been? Is this passage from the "Ap- 
peal to the Christian Churches" by the Swiss pastors 
too severe an indictment of the churches? 

"We are well av/are of all the moral and social prog- 
ress that has been made under the influence of that Gos- 
pel which is being preached more or less faithfully by 
all the churches. We recognize the action of the spirit 
of Christ in the international lavv^s designed to mitigate 
the horrors of war, in the recourse to arbitration made 
by some powers, and in those international congresses 
held in favor of peace. But what the churches have 
done during these last centuries, by indirect rather than 
by direct action, against war and in favor of peace, is 
little or nothing in comparison with what they could and 
ought to have done in order to maintain faithful to the 
soirit of their divine Master, or even simply to follow 
the example of the Church of the Middle Ages in its 
efforts towards the establishm.ent of the Truce of God. 
We ought, in this respect, to humble ourselves before 
God, and humbly to recognize that in the war on war, 
in the efforts made hitherto to burst the barriers which 
sin has raised between the nations, and to lead these to 
thoughts of peace, the churches have not taken the place 
and the position which was their duty and their right. 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 107 

"This neglect — this, so to speak, official neglect — of our 
Christian duty cannot longer continue without scandaliz- 
ing the world and without covering with opprobrium 
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is absolutely 
essential that all the churches which have at heart the 
glory of their Master and the advancement of the King- 
dom of God shall understand and undertake, without 
delay, the task which thrusts itself upon their attention. 
It is absolutely essential that in this Europe of ours, 
armed to the teeth, the churches shall uplift their voices 
with all their strength and cry: 'Peace on earth, good- 
will to men !' It is absolutely essential that they strive 
with all their might against prejudice, selfish interest and 
that false patriotism which sows jealousy and hatred 
among the nations. It is absolutely essential that they 
work together for the substitution of right for brute 
force — of arbitration for war. It is absolutely essential 
that they rouse the nations, not to a ruinous competition 
in armaments, but to a fruitful emulation in the arts of 
peace." 

Have the churches been doing the things we have 
mentioned above, which our friends have held before 
them in their appeal? The poor Pope dies because he 
cannot prevent the war. If we remember rightly, the 
Pope lent his sanction to one of those wars which had 
no slightest shred of moral justification — the war of 
Italy in Tripoli — and the Church blessed the troops. We 
ourselves remember seeing a mason carving on the walls 
of a great cathedral in England the names of the men 
who lost their lives shooting Boers. 

The churches of Russia sang Te Dennis over the 
Russo-Japanese war. There has never yet come from 
the Roman Catholic Church, or the Greek Church, or the 
Anglican Church, any official condemnation of the whole 
system of militarism, or the basing of European civiliza- 



108 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

tion upon force, so far as we know. Neither do we recall 
any official condemnation of any war. Who is to blame 
for this war? The Church is to blame. Perhaps this 
war will bring this truth home to her. 

But in vindication of certain men within the Church, 
and of certain churches within the Universal Church, we 
want to say that this war came just as large sections 
of the Church were awaking to their responsibility in 
this matter. For ten years now, the Federal Council of 
the Churches of Christ in America has been speaking 
out boldly against war and militarism. It has stood 
behind all efforts of our Presidents and Secretaries of 
State for arbitration. Various denominaitons in recent 
years have passed strong peace resolutions at their na- 
tional assemblies. The Church Peace Union, endowed by 
Mr. Carnegie in February of 1914, has representatives 
of all the great denominations on its Board and has acted 
vigorously and boldly, and had just brought all leaders 
of the Protestant churches of the world together for this 
Conference at Constance, as the war broke out. The 
Catholics were to have held a similar Conference at 
Liege, Belgium, the following week, with the co-operation 
of the Union. The churches of Great Britain and Ger- 
many, under the inclusive title of "The Associated 
Councils of Churches in the British and German Em- 
pires for Fostering Friendly Relations Between the Two 
Peoples," have been doing splendid work for the last 
five years. This work, though interrupted, will not be 
lost. When this war is over, we believe the churches 
will speak with a new conviction, to the effect that war 
is the "foulest fiend ever loosed from hell." 



Appendix I 

Those English delegates who were present at the Conference 
are as follows : J. Allen Baker, Esq., M. P., London, N. W., 
Member of the British Parliament, Chairman of the British 
Council of the Associated Councils of Churches in the British 
and German Empires for Fostering Friendly Relations Between 
the Two Peoples, Society of Friends ; the Hon. Lady Barlow, 
London, W., Society of Friends ; G. Blum, Esq., London, Secre- 
tary to the British Council of the Associated Councils of 
Churches in the British and German Empires for Fostering 
Friendly Relations Between the Two Peoples, Society of Friends; 
Rev. Dr. John Clifford, London, W., Minister of Westbourne 
Park Church, Baptist ; Rev. V. D. Davis, B. A., Bournemouth, 
Hampshire, Minister of Bournemouth Unitarian Church ; Rt. 
Hon. W. H. Dickinson, M. P., London, S. W., Member of His 
Majesty's Most Honorable Privy Council, Member of the British 
Parliament, Church of England ; Miss J. M. Fry, Guildford, So- 
ciety of Friends ; Rev. J. Morgan Gibbon, London, N. E., Ex-Chair- 
man of the Congregational Union of England and Wales; Rev. 
R. C. Gillie, M. A., London, W., Minister of Mar34ebone Pres- 
byterian Church ; Rev. Canon W. L. Grane, M. A., Cobham, 
Surrey, Canon of Chichester Cathedral, Hulsean Lecturer, 1913- 
1914, Church of England; Henry T. Hodgkin, Esq., M. A., 
M. B., London, N., Secretary of the Friends' Foreign Mission 
Association; Rt. Rev. The Bishop of Lichfield (Dr. J. A. 
Kempthorne), Lichfield, Church of England: Rev. J. A. Mac- 
keigan, B. A., St. John, New Brunswick (Canada), Presbyterian 
Church of Canada; Rev. J. H. Rushbrooke, M. A., London, 
N. W., Minister of the Hempstead Garden Suburb Free Church, 
Editor of the Peacemaker, Baptist ; Miss Meriel Talbot, Lon- 
don, S. W., Secretary of the Victoria League, Church of Eng- 
land; Rev. J. G. Tasker, D. D., Handsworth, Birmingham, 
Principal of Handsworth Wesleyan College; Very Rev. The 
Dean of Worcester (Dr. William Moore Ede), Worcester, 
Church of England. 

The Swedish delegates numbered two, namely: Rev. Principal 

109 



110 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

Benander, D.D., Stockholm, Principal of the Bethel Seminary, 
Baptist ; Rev. Albert Wickman, Lund, Baptist. The Norwegians, 
one : Rev. Ole Olsen, Christiania, Methodist Episcopal Church. 
The delegates from America were : Rev. Ernest Hamlin Ab- 
bott, New York, an editor of The Outlook, Member of the 
Social Service Commission of the Federal Council of the 
Churches of Christ in America; Rev. David Baines-Griffiths, 
M. A., New York, Pastor of Edgehill Church, New York, 
on the Literary Staff of the New York Tribune; Rev. W. C. 
Bitting, D.D., St. Louis, Mo., Pastor of the Second Baptist 
Church, St. Louis, Mo., Corresponding Secretary of the Northern 
Baptist Convention, Member of the Commission on Peace and 
Arbitration of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ 
in America ; Rev. William Adams Brown, D.D., LL.D., New 
York, Professor of Systematic Theology, Union Theological 
Seminary, New York ; Rev. Jonathan Day, D;.D., New 
York City, Superintendent of the Labor Temple, New York 
City, Member of the Social Service Commission of the Federal 
Council of the Churches of Christ in America ; Rev. Samuel 
Dickie, LL.D., Albion, Mich., President of Albion College, 
Albion, Mich., Ex-Mayor of Albion; Rev. George William 
Douglas, D.D., New York, Canon of the Cathedral of St. John 
the Divine, Director of The Churchman, Chairman of the Execu- 
tive Committee of the Christian Unity Foundation, New York; 
Rev. Paul Revere Frothingham, D.D., Boston, Pastor of the 
Arlington Street Church (Unitarian), Boston; Robert H. Gardi- 
ner, Esq., Secretary of the Commission of the Protestant Episco- 
pal Church on World Conference on Faith and Order; Rev. 
Sidney L. Gulick, D.D., Representative on International Rela- 
tionships for the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in 
America, Professor in Doshisha University and The Imperial 
University, Kyoto, Japan ; Rev. James J. Hall, D.D., Director of 
the American Peace Society for the South Atlantic States ; Rev. 
Thomas C. Hall, D.D., New York, Professor of Christian Ethics, 
Union Theological Seminary, New York ; Rev. E. R. Hendrix, 
D.D., LL.D., Senior Bishop Methodist Episcopal Church, South; 
Ex-President of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in 
America, Trustee of the Church Peace Union ; William I. Hull, 
Esq., Ph.D., Swarthmore, Penn., Professor of History and Inter- 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 111 

national Relationships, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Penn., 
Trustee of The Church Peace Union ; Rev. Frederick Lynch, 
D.D., Trustee and Secretary of The Church Peace Union, Editor 
of The Christian Work, Director of the New York Peace Society, 
President of the American-Scandinavian Foundation ; D. Willard 
Lyon, Esq., Secretary of the Committee to Promote Friendly 
Relations among Foreign Students of the World Student Chris- 
tian Federation ; Rev. Henry M. MacCracken, D.D., LL.D., Ex- 
Chancellor of New York University ; Rev. Charles S. Macf ar- 
land, Ph.D., Secretary of the Federal Council of the Churches 
of Christ in America, Secretary of the Commission on Peace 
and Arbitration of the Federal Council of the Churches of 
Christ in America, Trustee of The Church Peace Union ; Edwhi 
D. Mead, Esq., M. A., Boston, Mass., Chief Director of the 
World Peace Foundation, Boston, Mass., Member of the Berne 
Bureau, Director of the American Peace Society, Trustee of 
The Church Peace Union ; Rev. William Pierson Merrill, D.D., 
New York, Pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church, New York, 
Trustee of The Church Peace Union ; Rev. Philip S. Moxom, 
D.D., Springfield, Mass., Pastor of the South Congregational 
Church, Springfield, Mass., Director of the American Peace So- 
ciety, Member of the Commission on Peace and Arbitration of 
the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America ; 
George W. Nasmyth, Esq., Director of the International Bureau 
of Students; Rev. T. T. Richards, Scranton, Pa., Biaptist 
Church ; Rev. Claudius B. Spencer, D.D., LL.D., Kansas City, 
Mo., Editor of The Central Christian Advocate, Kansas City, 
Mo., Ex-Associate Secretary of the Federal Council of the 
Churches of Christ in America ; Rev. Charles L. Thompson, 
D.D., LL.D., Representative of the Presbyterian Board of Home 
Missions, Member of the Social Service Commission of the 
Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, Ex- 
Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church 
in the United States; Rev. Ezra Squire Tipple, D.D., LL.D., 
President of the Drew Theological Seminary, Trustee of Syra- 
cuse University, Recording Secretary of the Board of Education 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church ; Rev. James L. Tryon, Ph.D., 
Director of the New England Department of the American 
Peace Society ; Rev. George U. Wenner, D.D., New York, Pastor 



112 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

of Christ Church (Lutheran), New York, Ex-President of the 
Synod of New York and New Jersey; Frank F. Williams, Esq., 
New York, Secretary of the Peace and Arbitration Society, 
Buffalo, New York; Rev. Luther B. Wilson, D.D., LL.D., New 
York, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church of New York, 
Member of the Commission on Peace and Arbitration of the 
Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, Trustee 
of The Church Peace Union; Rev. Cornelius Woelfkin, D.D., 
LL.D., New York, Pastor of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, 
New York, Professor in Rochester Theological Seminary, Ex- 
President of the American Foreign Missionary Society; Mrs. 
Lucia Ames Mead ; Mrs. Frank F. Williams ; Rev. Anson D. 
Atterbury, Pastor Presbyterian Church, New York City. 

The German delegate was Herr Pastor Lie. F. Siegmund- 
Schultze, Berlin, Secretary of the Associated Councils of 
Churches and Editor of Die Eiche* 



* Owing to the fact that the roll-call of the Conference is in 
the hands of Mr. Blum, who is detained in Germany, it is im- 
possible to give the names of the French and Swiss delegates 
present. Several French delegates came, including M. Marius 
Dumesnil, Editor of L'Universelle, and were immediately called 
home. The list will be perfected as soon as possible. — Editor. 



Appendix II 

Constructive Methods for Promoting International 

Peace 

By Professor Sidney L. Gulick, D.D. 

Representative of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ In America 



(Abstract of an address delivered before the Church Peace 
Conference at Constance, August 2, 1914.) 

I approach this subject from the standpoint of twenty-six 
years of missionary service in Japan. My brain has become 
saturated with the Oriental view-point. The tragedy that is being 
enacted around us, and this enormous problem of the relations of 
the nations and the promotion of peace, I look at with eyes 
orientalized. But this is no disadvantage. Rather the reverse. 
It helps me to see things in a perspective impossible to those 
immersed in the Occident. 

For the background of my remarks let me recall the impressive 
service of the morning, with that ninth chapter of Daniel 
and its confession of sin. How truly it describes our present 
condition! Should it not also express our contrition of heart? 
I would first note: 

I. FOUR SIGNIFICANT FACTORS 

in the present world situation, which must be taken into account 
by those who would promote in efifective and constructive ways 
permanent peace among the nations. 

1. The New Era. Mankind has entered upon a new era 
in the history of its development. The modern mastery 
of the secrets of Nature with the control it gives of 
titanic forces has advanced to such a stage of practical 
efficiency that all the nations are equipped for destructive 
warfare as was never before even dreamed. With this 
control of power has come also the practical collapse 
of space. The thoughts and decisions of peoples far 
removed — even on opposite sides of the globe — are de- 

113 



114 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

clared to all the world in a few hours. Railroads and 
steamers make possible the transportation of foodstuffs 
and manufactures not only, but of vast armies, with 
incredible speed from land to land. 

This is producing a new contact of races. The impact 
of diverse cultures and civilizations is causing mighty 
changes. Ideas, ideals, ambitions are communicated from 
people to people and from race to race. Even Asia, so 
long dorm-ant, is awaking. The unity of each land and 
people is being compacted, and race consciousness de- 
veloped; sense of wrong and injustice is growing in each 
land subjected to aggression and alien exploitation; 
resentm.ent and demands for revenge are gaining head- 
way. 

New races are thus pushing to the front, demanding 
liberty and unity, sovereignty and recognition of their 
rights by others. Old supremacies are threatened. But 
the old powers are unwilling to relax their grasp and 
special privilege. 
2. Armaments for Preserving the Peace. A second signifi- 
cant factor of the present situation is the enormous 
armament developed by each of the nations of Christen- 
dom. The combined armJes of the six principal nations 
amount to 5,811,000 on a peace footing and to 13,091,000 
on a war footing. Each people insists that its own 
armamients are intended only for self defence ; that they 
are necessary for safety from powerful and treacherous 
neighbors ; that readiness for war is the best way to 
promote peace. Has not the fallacy of this peace pro- 
gram exploded like a bomb? Is not the European con- 
flict, now breaking out all around us so suddenly and 
terrifically, due exactly to the readiness for war? Each 
nation is so prepared for action that it has really acted 
upon rumors and even upon suspicions as to the plants 
of the foe. Readiness for war has been exactly the most 
potent cause of the present awful situation. The gov- 
ernments have plunged the nations into war without giv- 
ing cool diplomacy a moment's time for exchange of 
views, for the clearing up of misunderstandings, and for 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 115 

the proposals of solutions other than the appeal to arms. 
It has been possible to inflame the passions of the people 
by mere rumors, largely false, and impossible to quiet 
them by truth. 

The Peace Movement. A third important factor of the 
times is the widespread movement in many lands urging 
the need of specific plans for peace. They propose arbi- 
tration treaties, international laws and an Arbitral Court 
of Justice at The Hague. This movement has sprung 
up and made considerable headway quite outside of the 
churches. 

We who are members of this Church Peace Congress 
cannot but rejoice in all that this Peace Movement has 
accomplished — the treaties made and the international 
difficulties already settled by arbitration. Yet is not the 
entire movement open to the criticism that its program is 
not in the deepest sense constructive? It would provide 
methods for solving international difficulties when they 
arise — by appealing to good sense and arbitrators instead 
of rushing to arms. While this movement, therefore, 
must be highly approved, must we not also insist that 
it fails to go to the root of the problem? Its peace 
program deals with superficial symptoms, not with the 
disease itself from which all wars spring. It would find 
m.ethods of solving difficulties after they have arisen. 
But what we need is a method for preventing difficulties 
from arising and becoming acute. 

The Indifference and Inactiinty Hitherto of the Churches. 
The fourth factor in the modern situation demanding 
our attention is the amazing fact that in spite of the 
ominous armaments and rising international jealousies and 
prophesies of a speedy and overwhelming war of the 
nations, the churches of Christendom are both indifferent 
and inactive. They seem to regard the matter as no 
concern of theirs. Such movements as have taken place 
for the promotion of international peace are the work 
of men in many instances indifferent to religion and 
scornful of Christianity. And are they not largely justi- 
fied in that attitude when we consider the apathy of the 



116 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

churches as such to all the pressing social, industrial and 
military problems of the times. 

Just think of it! Here we are on the very brink of a 
vast and frightful war. Prodigious military preparations 
have been under way for a generation, and almost un- 
limited expenses have been incurred. Yet this is the first 
time that Christians of different nations have come to- 
gether as Christians to consult as to the possibility of 
some better way of solving international difficulties ! 

How are we to account for this apathy and inactivity 
of modern Christianity? 

(1) The Individualistic Interpretation of Christianity 
is no doubt one important cause of the present Christian 
attitude to war preparation. Christianity is widely con- 
ceived as a means of salvation for the individual soul — 
a means for peace of mind here and perpetual peace 
hereafter — in heaven. The Church is supposed to have 
accomplished its duty if the individual soul is set right in 
inner feelings toward God. 

(2) The Kingdom of God is conceived as a future 
state, not in this world here and now. Christian preach- 
ers have failed to understand and to teach this central 
truth in the teaching of Jesus, that the Kingdom of which 
He spoke is here and now, and concerns all the relations 
of man with man. The Church accordingly has not felt 
called to face and solve the pressing problems of industry, 
of labor and capital. It has not made love to man a test 
of love to God; nor honesty in business and politics 
a condition of church membership. The Church has 
failed to teach the duty of Christians to make their con- 
duct Christian as well as their professed thinking. In- 
tellectual orthodoxy — even though entirely formal and 
oftentimes hypocritical — has been and still is widely 
accepted by the churches of Christendom as adequate 
evidence of qualification for heaven. How far all this 
is from the moral demands and the moral fervor of 
Jesus, whom the Church professes to revere and obey! 

The Church, moreover, has lost two vital truths of 
primitive Christianity. The first of these is 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 117 

(3) The Real Brotherhood of Man and Equality of 
Races. A special revelation was needed, even after the 
full teaching of Jesus, to convince the leaders of the 
Apostolic Church that the Gentiles and Samaritans are 
"co-heirs" of the Kingdom. Not until those proud Jews 
learned to sit and eat with Samaritans whom they hated 
and Gentiles whom they despised, was the Apostolic 
Church ready for its wide missionary work and able to 
enter upon it. The problem of the races was the rock on 
which the early church well-nigh made shipwreck. Only 
they who accepted the revelation — which Paul designated 
as the great mystery of the ages — were able to share in 
the founding of the Church Universal. A new testing- 
time has come to the Church of Christendom on this 
very question. What think ye of the heathen? — of 
Asiatics? — of members of other nations? Do you accept 
them as your brothers in fact as well as in abstract^ 
theory? To-day the Church has largely taken the attitude 
of the Pharasees and Saducees whom Christ condemned. 
The neighboring nation are Samaritans to us and the 
heathen are Gentiles. Can the modern Church regain 
the ancient revelation of the real brotherhood of man? 

(4) To love one's enemies was the superlative teach- 
ing of Jesus and a marked characteristic of early Chris- 
tians. Is not this a teaching and a practice largely lost 
from the modern Church? In any case, so far as it is 
thought to apply, it is limited to individuals and not to 
peoples and nations. But even in this narrow sense, how 
widely is it actually practiced? 

If now it is true that modern Christianity fails at the four 
points thus briefly described, is it strange that it is apathetic 
and impotent in these threatening times of hatred, bloodshed 
and destruction on a scale unprecedented? 

II. PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS FOR A CONSTRUCTIVE 
PEACE PROGRAM FOR CHRISTIANS 

If the conditions have been accurately diagnosed in the pre- 
ceding paragraphs, is it not clear what this Conference should 



118 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

stress in its appeal to the Churches of Christendom in behalf 
of peace? 

1. Instead of surrendering the leadership in international 
peace movements to statesmen, economists and jurists, 
whose view-point is almost of a necessity utilitarian, 
political and legal, the churches should assume the leader- 
ship by providing the high ,altruistic inspiration of 
Christian ideals and motives. The churches may well 
leave to experienced statesmen and international jurists 
the determination of practical and technical details, the 
construction of the social machinery' essential for the deep- 
ening and widening relations of nations and races. We 
may be certain, however, that this movement can never 
succeed so long as its inspiring motive is selfish national 
aggrandizement and blank utilitarian and materialistic, 
political and social economy. 

2. Let us, accordingly, not fancy that statesmen and jurists 
can do all that is needed. We must recognize that they 
deal with matters of method and organization, and not 
with the deeper forces of life and passion. They cannot 
provide, therefore, the constructive, vital force, the heal- 
ing life for the disease of the world. What the world 
needs is some power that will transform the feelings, 
ambitions, jealousies, passions of the races and nations. 
Hatred must be turned into love, desire for revenge into 
desire to help. Ambitions must be made holy and unself- 
ish. The temptation of Satan to give victory through 
brute force and by fraud must be seen as false. Real and 
permanent world-power cannot be given by anything less 
than truth, justice and good-will. Where else shall we 
look for this teaching and this power than to the Church 
of the Christ who saw through and rejected the falacies 
of Satan's tempting suggestions? 

3. But in order that the Church may do its work, what is 
more needful than the recovery of that vision of the 
early Church that all men are brothers and co-heirs in 
the Kingdom of God? God is no respector of persons, 
nor of peoples. God has no pet race. Neither the white 
race as a whole, nor any particular section of it, has any 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 119 

special claim on God's favors, nor does it possess divine 
sanctions for special privilege. Can we of this Confer- 
ence persuade the Churches of Christendom to accept 
this vision and apply it to life? Can we make Christen- 
dom believe in the equal rights with us even of Asiatics 
and Africans? If all professed Christians should become 
real Christians, the practical problems of the relations of 
the races of the world would soon be solved, and with it 
the problems of peace and war. For these are problems 
and serious ones. But their solution lies first of all m 
the realm of the heart and after that of the head. Not 
till the equal rights of every race are fully recogmzed 
will wars cease and rumors of wars. 
4. Finally, professed Christians must recover the deepest 
of all Christian truths, the truth revealed on the cross by 
the death of the Redeemer of the world, that only suf- 
fering love, the voluntary suffering of the innocent and 
the righteous in loyalty to truth and good-will to all of 
every race and nation, can redeem the world from tts 
sin and error, and thus from its turmoil and its wars. 
We must learn to do good to our enemies, to pray for 
them and actually help them. Instead of struggling for 
national and race supremacy established and maintained 
by brute force and wholesale murder, the Church must 
teach the nations that true greatness, national and racial 
as well as individual, comes only from service, and can 
be maintained only by service. To overcome enmity m 
hostile peoples, let us seek to do them good, even at 
great cost. If by good deeds we make enemies our 
friends, genuinely grateful for real help, how can we 
possibly fear them or they us? How can we possibly 
begrudge each other's prosperity and progress? How 
can they possibly desire to injure us? If the nations of 
Europe had been spending one-tenth of their war budgets 
on programs of international helpfulness, would war 
between them be conceivable? 

But the Church herself must lead in this most profound and 
effective of all the methods for promoting univernl peace. We 



120 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

may not say to the world "go" — but "come." Let us first show 
the reality of our faith and the efficacy of our method, by actually 
doing what we preach, practicing what we profess. 

Nor let the churches or nations fancy that the peace problem 
is a question merely for the nations of Christendom in their 
home relations. It is a world problem. Europe's armaments 
have been developed, not exclusively for defence of Fatherland, 
but rather for possession of colonies in distant lands and ambi- 
tions for world-controling power. All peace programs will prove 
futile that do not include provision for justice and good-wilh 
for Asia and Africa voluntarily granted. 

"Woe to them that say 'Peace, Peace,' when there is no peace," 
because injustice and brute force still reign and might alone 
makes right. 

"Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." 
And above all, 

"LOVE YOUR ENEMIES." 



Appendix III 

Report and Declaration of the American Delegates at 

the International Conference of The Church Peace 

Union to the Federal Council of Churches of 

Christ in America, and its Commission 

on Peace and Arbitration 



In behalf of the delegates from the Federal Council of the 
Churches of Christ in America, the undersigned were appointed 
as a Special Committee to prepare and publish to our brethren 
at home a declaration and summary concerning the recent 
momentous Conference of The Church Peace Union, which Con- 
ference, begun at Constance on Sunday, August 2nd, was con- 
tinued in London on Wednesday, August Sth. In so doing 
we are following the example of the English delegates to the 
Conference, whose terse and weighty utterance to the brethren 
in England was published in the London Times, Daily Chronicle, 
and other newspapers on August Sth. 

In making this report we are authorized to speak substantially 
for the entire body of American delegates to the Church Peace 
Conference. 



AN HOUR FOR CALMNESS AND VISION 

It is significant that this first International Conference of the 
Churches for the promotion of friendship and peace between 
the nations of the world occurred at a moment when we were 
all obliged to witness an amazing development of the war fever, 
and the widespread misery caused on all sides by the mere 
preparations for battle ; and we have had a unique opportunity 
to witness the sincere and profound reluctance with which 
the sober and serious element in every nation concerned has 

121 



122 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

found itself involved in the imminent cataclysm. Whatever the 
im.mediate outcome may be, we are more than ever confident 
and convinced that this sober and serious element of every 
Christian nation is now, as always, moving under the guidance 
and blessing of Almighty God our Father. Our dismay is not 
despair. No note of pessimism has been heard at any of the 
four Sessions of our Conference; there is a general conscious- 
ness that now more than ever we are called to co-operate in 
the spirit of Jesus Christ, so that no, self-will or bitterness or 
impatience on our part shall cloud our vision, or hinder us from 
seizing the opportunity which God is giving us to do his will in 
the world — waiting upon the Lord. 



OUR CHRISTIAN IDEALISM CONFIRMED 

This war, so far from indicating the futility of our plans 
and endeavors, or the foolishness of Christian Idealism, is 
demonstrating that the methods of brute force, and of incon- 
siderate egotism, are as unintelligent and inefficient as they are 
unchristian. We are witnessing the reductio ad absurdum of 
unchristian civilization ; for peace is not to be secured by prep- 
arations for war (even if unchristian men compel their brothers 
in self-defence, and for the sake of sacred treaties, to make ready 
for war.) Not that it is in the interests of peace to belittle 
the spirit of patriotism, but to Christianize it. Like our laws 
and our culture, our education and commerce and industrialism, 
so too our very patriotism must be pervaded by the mind of 
Christ and ready for the discipline of the Cross — the sign and 
symbol, not merely of brotherly love, but of international love, 
over against the short-sightedness and selfishness of individuals 
and peoples. As we disperse to our homes and fatherland that 
is the message we are bringing from this Conference ; and it is 
first and foremost to call to international humiliation and prayer 
in the name and confidence of Christ. The time for men to 
prevent war is not when the events are culminating, but far, 
far back at the springs of human conduct, individual, national 
and international. Let us see to it that henceforth "all our 
fresh springs are in God." 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 123 

THE HARDER TASK OF THE CHURCHES OF EUROPE 

This is not the moment to dwell on the practical steps which 
may be taken by us all in common to promote peace among the 
nations. Some such steps will appear in the four resolutions 
which are to be published in due time by the International Com- 
mittee of our Conference. Others will be afterwards disclosed. 
Meanwhile we desire to emphasize the fact that has been borne 
in on us by contact with the workers of the Peace Movement in 
England and Europe generally — that more problems than we 
Americans were aware of are on the shoulders of those who, 
under God, are now leading the churches of Europe ; and we 
are grateful to our Heavenly Father for the skill and wisdom 
and self-control which, in this trying ordeal, have been vouch- 
safed to them. For five years previous to the formation of our 
Church Peace Union, these our brethren on this side of the 
Atlantic have been paving the way for what is now our common 
task, and it is their actual knowledge of men and means in the 
different nations of Europe which made it possible for our first 
International Church Conference for the Promotion of Peace 
to be so widely and thoroughly representative. 

THE HOUR OF OUR OPPORTUNITY 

We in America have much to contribute henceforth to the 
common cause, and by our freedom from entangling alliances, 
and from some traditions which in Europe are an inheritance, 
we may, if we are properly considerate, be able to do and say 
some things which Europeans cannot ; but after our present 
privilege of communion with the delegates over here, we know 
and feel that there is a vast deal for them to do which would 
be beyond our power. Therefore the determination of our Con- 
ference to rely on the International Committee for guidance, 
and for ultimate decisions from time to time — the resolution to 
"move all together when we move at all" — is a determination 
■which we are sure will commend itself to our brethren in the 
United States. In the very midst of this internecine conflict of 
the leading nations of Europe, there will be henceforth from 
each of them well-chosen and skillful delegates to our Inter- 



124 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

national Council, ready and able to contribute of their special 
experience and prayers to our common endeavors for the peace 
of the world and the Christianization of all mankind. 

Submitted to the Federal Council of the 
Churches of Christ in America and its 
Commission on Peace and Arbitration by 
Instruction of the American Delegates. 

E. R. Hendrix, Chairman 

Luther B. Wilson 

Wm. Pierson Merrill 

Geo. William Douglas 

Frederick Lynch 

Chas. S. MacfarlanDj Secretary 

Committee appointed by the delegates rep- 
resenting the Federal Council of the 
Churches of Christ in America. 

Constance, Germany, August 2, 1914. 
London, England, August 5, 1914. 



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Appendix IV 



ENGLISHMEN, DO YOUR DUTY 

And Keep Your Country Out of a 
WICKED A ND STU PID WAR. 

Small but powerful cliques are trying to rush you into it You must 

DESTROY THE PLOT TO-DAY 

or it will be to o late. 

Ask Yourselves: 
WHY SHOULD WE GO TO WAR? 

THE WAR PARTY say we must maintain the Balance of Power, 
because if Germany were to annex Holland or Belgium, she would be 
so powerful as to threaten us ; or because we are bound by Treaty to fight 
for the neutrality of Belgium, or because we are bound by our agreements 
with France to fight for her. 



these reasons are false. 
THE WAR PARTY DOES NOT TELL THE TRUTH. 

The FACTS are these: 

1. U we took sides with Russia and France the Balance of Power would be upset as it has never been before. It would make the military Russian 
Empire of 1 60.000.000 the dominant power of Europe You know the kind of country Russia is 

2. We are not boand to join in » general Eoropean war to defend the neutrality of Belgium. Our treaties expressly sbpulate that our obligations 
under them shall not compel us to take part in a genera] European war in order to fulfil them. And if we are to fight for the neutrality of Belgium, we 
must be prepared to fight France as well as Germany 

3. The Prime Minister and Sir Edward Grey have both emphatically and solemnly declared in the House of Gimmons that we have no undertaking 
whatever, written or spoken to go to war for France We discharged our obLgations in the Morocco affair. The Entente &)rdialc was a pact of peace 
and not an alhance for war 

4. If Germany did attempt to annex any part of Belgium. Holland or Normandv— and there is no reason to suppose that she would attempt iu<Ji a 
thing— she would lie weaker than she is now. for she would have to use all her forces for holdmg her conquests down. She would have so many diihculties 
like those arising out of Alsace that she would have to leave other nations alone as much as possible. But we do not know in the least that she would do 
these things It would be monstrous to drag this country into war on so vague a suspiaoa 

It is Your Duty to Save Your Country from tliis Disaster. 

Act TO-DAY, on it may be Too Late, 

Write your Member thai you will try to turn him out at the next election if he does not use his influence with the Government on the side of peace. 
Get your local notables to hold meetings of protest against England taking part b the war. Make vour Trade Union, your LLP., or B.S.P. 
branch pass strong resolutions Persuade your clergyman or minister to urge the need for standmg clear. Send letters to your newspapers. 

There are a thousand thhigs you can do if you reaUy love your country. 
Distribute the Leaflets of the NEUTHALITY LEAGUE. 

We Want Thousands of Helpers I 

Write or Call at our Temporary Offices : 

D. ROBERTSON. IZ St Bride Street Rort Sueet, E.C ! Mi« TALIMM>GE. 37, Evelyo M»im<,n* C<irfiJ. Hk.. S. . 



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Appendix V 

Some Sidelights on the Collapse of European 

Policies* 

By Rev. Charles S. Macfarland, D.D. 

Secretary of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America 



To one who has had some opportunity of witnessing at 
close hand, the negotiations and events culminating in 
the European conflagration, certain prophecies are seen to 
be in process of fulfillment, and some interpretations seem 
clear. 

THE MILITARIST PROGRAM 

In the latter part of 1912 a book appeared in Germany, 
entitled "Germany and the Next War," which excited 
both consternation and fear in England and other Euro- 
pean nations. It was written by General Friedrich von 
Bernhardi of the Militarist Party in Germany. Its fore- 
cast of events now being consummated was based on 
previous treatises on German history and politics by 
Germany's historian and philosopher. Prof. Treitschke, 
who averred that "God will see to it that war always 
recurs as a drastic medicine for the human race." 

It also bears the marks of the influence of Friedrich 
Nietzsche on German thought and policy and of his 
relentless philosophy of the survival of the fittest. 



* This article contains both an analysis of the correspondence 
of Sir Edward Grey with the powers and a review of General 
von Bernhardi's "Germany and the Next War." — Editor. 

125 



126 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

The reading of Bernhardi's book is sufficient however, 
for he has set forth in concrete program the philosophy 
of Nietzsche and the historico-poHtical system of 
Treitschke and now becomes both prophet and interpreter 
of many of the events of the present moment. 

The Germans, Bernhardi asserts, have proved them- 
selves the ruling people by two characteristics : The 
power of their arms and the loftiness of their ideas. 
They are now, however, in danger of decadence as to 
the latter because they have relinquished the former. 
They are deteriorating because they are too fond of 
peace. 

The political world about them is ruled solely by 
"interests" and never by good-will. Germany is just; 
but the nations about her have no such aim. Moreover, 
Germany is under moral obligation to keep by war what 
she has won by war, and not only that, but to increase 
her winnings. War indeed is "the greatest factor in 
the furtherance of culture as well as power." The 
spiritual duties and moral obligations of Germany can- 
not be fulfilled without the drawing of the sword. 

She is beset on all sides by deceitful powers, and the 
treaty proposals of the United States are only for the 
sinister purpose of political aggrandisement and not an 
expression of good-will. Those who saw any other 
meaning in President Taft's treaties are "theorists and 
fanatics." 

Indeed, "war is a biological necessity of the first 
importance," or in the words of Heraclitus, "war is the 
father of all things." A state is ultimate and "no power 
exists which can judge between states." 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 127 

Increase of population necessitates "new territory" 
and it can only be secured by conquest. "Might gives 
the right ; it is at once the supreme right, and the dispute 
as to what is right is decided only by the arbitrament 
of war." 

Bernhardi evokes moral idealism on the basis of his 
biological as against the social basis of interracial and 
international relations. War not only follows biological 
law, but it is a moral obligation. And throughout he 
is speaking not of defensive but of offensive warfare 
and aggression. 

Indeed, the peace spirit is bald materialism and the 
war spirit is the highest moral and spiritual idealism. 
How about the Christian law of love ! It applies solely 
between individuals (of the same state) and has "no 
significance for the relations of one country to another." 
As a matter of fact, the leaders of peace (the United 
States specifically included) are concerned solely with 
the gross material prosperities and not with spiritual 
things. 

Nietzsche appears in Bernhardi's frank avowal : "The 
idea that a weak nation has the same right to live as a 
powerful and vigorous nation is subversive of human 
development." 

Thus the ultimate conclusion is that war is a nation's 
duty, and "zmrs ivhich have been deliberately provoked 
by far-seeing statesmen have had the happiest results." 

Individual ethics are reversed in the duties of states. 
"The end-all and the be-all of a state is pozver." The 
Christian duty of sacrifice is limited. It can have no 
higher object than a state. A sacrifice to an alien nation 
is immoral, because "self-preservation is the highest 



128 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

ideal of a state." Therefore all relations between states 
are "latent war" and the higher the idealism of the state 
the less latent is the war. 

Only one open question remains. Hesitancy is morally 
justified only if there be no "reasonable prospect of 
success." 

Apply this to Germany. We (the Germans) have 
always been the divinely ordained custodians of spiritual 
ideals. Germany is losing these through peace. Mean- 
while England has built an empire, not by spiritual 
weapons, but "by the power of money." The United 
States has "unscrupulously" done the same. Germany, 
the custodian of intellectual development, science and 
culture, has fallen behind, and frustrated God's plans 
because of her contentment in peace. She has been 
robbed, has lost her people, and has no colonial territory 
in which to dispose her new population. 

The possessor of the highest things in the moral realm, 
she has failed in her moral obligation to spread her 
culture, which in the nature of things could only be con- 
veyed and distributed to the spiritually needy world by 
arms, force and conquest. Sadly enough, she is 
surrounded by nations, who, so wretchedly in need of 
Germany's spiritual gifts, are thus deprived of them, but 
are also in danger of imposing their own sordid and 
decadent life on Germany. Such will be the fruits of 
peace. It is especially true of the surrounding Slavs. 
Therefore, "an expansion of German power is a political 
necessity" in the interest of a waiting humanity, and 
"what is to be thus attained must be fought for and won 
against a superior force of hostile interests and powers." 

The weakness of the Triple Alliance is its limitation 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 129 

to defensive warfare, for "Pan-slavism is hard at work." 

Our author treats the nations like chess on the board, 
showing the possible alliances and counter alliances in 
"the next war." The varying- disposition of the nations 
is either for or against Germany and "the idea of a 
pacific agreement with England is a will-o'-the-wisp." 

Germany faces her alternatives. It is either "World 
Power or Downfall." Her victory is the triumph of 
spiritual culture in the order of the world ; her downfall 
is the decadence of human civilization. Only war can 
decide the issue. And in order that an impoverished 
humanity may thus receive its rightful inheritance of 
culture "France must be so completely crushed that she 
can never again cross our path." Incidentally, "a crash 
in Portugal might give us possession of Portuguese 
colonies," and Belgium must not be allowed to become 
the ground on which France and England can unite 
forces. 

"Thus shall we discharge our great duties of the 
future, grow into a World Power, and stamp a great 
part of humanity with the impress of the German spirit." 

It is either this or disaster and degradation for 
Germany, and forget it not — therefore for a great part 
of humanity. 

Now then, her path of progress being threatened by 
formidable enemies, not only her future, but also her 
present position, call for the appeal to arms. The 
hostility of England may be assumed, but Russia would 
be hampered by Japan or China. In this "next war" 
Belgian neutrality will become a "paper bulwark.' 
Germany "will stand isolated in a great war of the 



130 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

nations." Her attitude must be offensive and aggressive 
at the start. 

Let Germany- (1911) plan for it by training and educa- 
tion. To be fit for it her people must be at their highest ; 
alcoholism must be fought and religion (in terms of the 
state) must be taught the young. 

THIS PROGRAM IN ACTION 

In Bernhardi's book we have a clear commentary on 
the German attitude in the present crisis, and it is signifi- 
cant that our prophet gives as the date when Germany 
must be ready as 1914. 

Our author and his colleagues were ready, and when a 
political complication in Austria offered the chance they 
sprang into the saddle at Berlin. The German attitude 
is apparently as relentless as the haggard philosophy of 
Nietzsche. It has the same morale. Humanity is to 
become the eternal debtor to Germany, and even though 
it be an unwilling recipient of German culture and spirit. 
To this holy end, materialism (industry, commerce, 
happiness, individual and family welfare) must yield to 
a spiritual power wielding the sword (bomb, mine and 
torpedo) in its hand. 

COULD IT HAVE BEEN AVERTED? 

That "Imperial Germany" (not the German people) 
was prepared for this war is clear, as also that it was 
in a state of mind ready to glide from hesitation into 
action. Bernhardi, however, declares that, "England 
could never be drawn into a war unwillingly or without 
her consent." 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 131 

COULD ENGLAND AND THE OTHER POWERS 
HAVE AVERTED THIS WAR? 

The nearest to an answer may be found in the corre- 
spondence between Sir Edward Grey and the various 
British ambassadors and the conferences between the 
latter and the German, Russian, Austrian, French and 
ItaHan heads of state, just pubHshed by parHament. 

This document shows clearly that the lamentable 
failure to avert calamity was largely due to the delays 
of an intricate and confused diplomacy. For the pacific 
party in Germany co-operating with Prince Lichnowsky 
in London was strong enough in conjunction with those 
in Germany who did not believe her hour had yet come 
and who were at least reluctant, to have restrained 
Germany (and consequently Austria) had the powers 
been able to move with immediateness and in concert. 

It is, morever, seriously to be doubted that the Kaiser 
personally precipitated the war. His professions need 
not be counted as false. He has probably felt that the 
mailing of the fist would preclude the necessity for using 
"the mailed fist." Only a few days ago he conveyed to 
the International Church Peace Conference at Constance 
(August 2d) his good wishes, through one of the assistant 
Court preachers, had advised German clerical delegates 
to attend it, and at the last moment conveyed word to 
the delegates that a message from the churches urging 
peace would be received by him with gratification. 

In the negotiations conducted by Sir Edward Grey, 
each act is taken and each letter arrives, again and again 
just too late. The time is always a little too short. 

Austria gave Servia only twenty-four short hours to 
meet an ultimatum, and no statesman was able to act and 



132 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

think quickly enough to interpose between these two 
irresponsible agents. 

Beginning July 20, with the request of Sir Edward 
that the case between Austria and Servia be given full 
time for consideration, the negotiators are constantly 
pleading for time. At first Gerrhany declines to interfere 
on the ground that Austria-Hungary has been sufficiently 
forbearing with Servia, although Great Britain urges 
that Austria's demands are too peremptory. 

Germany continues to justify Austria, until her 
modification is too late to avail. 

Sir Edward then turns to Servia with the hope that 
she will answer "as favorably as possible" and consult 
with Russia and France before replying. 

Then begins a series of communications between 
London, Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Paris, Rome 
and Belgrade, each important one coming just a little 
too late to secure result and thus necessitating another 
with a dififerent proposal, likewise too tardy. 

Russia could secure some moderation at Belgrade were 
not Austria's time limit so short. Germany thinks 
Austria must be allowed to chastise Servia anyway, but 
agrees to localization. Meanwhile Austria-Hungary 
demands unconditional acceptance of her demands by 
Servia ; so Sir Edward Grey pleads for a conciliatory 
reply from Servia to save the peace, it being tacitly 
acknowledged now that any war means general war, all 
the powers holding this opinion except Germany, who 
still urges localization. 

Mediation between Servia and Austria abandoned, the 
next step is mediation between Russia and Austria, and 
Russia asks an extension of time for Austria's ultimatum 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 133 

to Servia. Again too late, for Servia's reply comes. 
England, backed all along by all the powers but Germany, 
asks Austria to receive it favorably, but are rebuffed. 
Germany is willing simply to act as a conveyor of 
England's hope to Austria and will simply "pass it on" 
without comment. 

England now urged suspension of military action, 
pending a conference of French, German, Italian and 
English representatives ; but Russia decides she must 
take preventive measures against an attack in Servia. 
The German Secretary of State opposes the proposed 
conference and would substitute direct "conversations" 
between Vienna and St. Petersburg. Again too late, for 
Austria has declared war (the 28th) on Servia. 

Up to this time Germany has made no restraining 
effort and the other powers all urge that "the key to the 
situation is at Berlin," whence word is conveyed, as late 
as July 28th, that Servia might accept the whole of the 
Austrian note, through the powers, if accompanied by 
"explanations." 

The German Secretary of State, having objected to 
the method of conference suggested by the other powers, 
is asked to suggest one, but to this he does not respond, 
except by giving various reasons for objection to the 
method suggested. On the 29th the German Chancellor 
is of the opinion that it is now too late for proposals to 
Austria and that for him to press her now would not 
deter but be more likely to precipitate action. 

During this delay Russia mobilizes against Austria, and 
almost simultaneously, in answer to a repeated request 
for a suggestion as to method, Germany makes the 
surprising suggestion that if Great Britain remains 



134 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

neutral, Germany will agree to acquire no territory at 
the expense of France other than colonial, and observes 
that German operations in Belgium will depend upon 
France. Sir Edward Grey's reply is that the only way to 
assure good relations is "to work together for peace." 

The other powers now urge upon England that the 
best way to restrain German action is to intimate Great 
Britain's participation in case of. war. Sir Edward, 
however, steadfastly refuses to do or say anything except 
to urge peace. 

Austria now must mobilize because of Russia's pre- 
ventive measures, and on the 30th Austria declines further 
"conversations" with St. Petersburg. And now, strangely 
enough, Germany takes a positive stand and advises 
moderation at Vienna — again too late. But at the same 
moment the German Chancellor announces that because 
Russia is arming Germany must act, and on the next 
day, the 31st, "Kriegsgefahr" is declared in Germany. 

So the checkers are played and Russia makes the next 
move by ordering general mobilization. Germany, her- 
self, at least preparing for the same action, calls on 
Russia to demobilize and asks France for a statement of 
her intentions. 

Russia offers to assume a waiting attitude, pending 
new arrangements, and on August 1st it appears that 
Russia and Austria (due probably to Germany) will con- 
verse again. But again it is too late, for Germany is 
already mobilizing. (I found the printed posters of 
full directions posted in Constance, Sunday morning, 
August 2nd.) 

Too late again, Austria-Hungary will accept mediation, 
but meanwhile France has begun mobilizing, Germany 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 135 

has gone too far, and each train, itself too late, has made 
all the following ones too late, and now the last one is 
too late. Could not one have been omitted from the 
schedule? No, not with the methods of European diplo- 
macy. On the 4th of August, Germany violates the 
neutrality of Belgium and England herself is at war. 
Such was the outcome of bungling diplomatic procedure, 
with its belated proposals and with each proposed action 
precluded by some interposing hasty act or utterance. 

Can the blame be located? All the powers seem to 
have sought mediation except Germany and Austria. 
Germany was in favor of it aside from Austrio-Servian 
matters. German co-operation was essential to success. 
She was constantly urged. Russia offers to restrain 
Servia, but Germany cannot do so with Austria. 
Germany objects to the proposed mode of conference 
but suggests no other. 

Austria opposes every pacific plan until too late, and 
then offers to do what, if done earlier, would have saved 
the peace of Europe. That the spirit of war in more 
than one direction was vital, even in the movements for 
peace, is made sadly evident by the repeated unheeded 
request for suspension of military action to Austria, 
Russia and Germany. 

Who then is the real aggressor ? Quite clearly Austria 
in point of time. For the sins of commission Germany 
is culpable. But for the sins of omission, the other 
powers must all assume their proportionate share, as we 
shall see in a moment. For the powers could have turned 
the tide had they not had the weights of diplomatic 
amenity tied to their feet. Formality secured the fate- 
ful delays. Tf only one voice had really spoken to all 



136 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

the rest, at once, with directness and frankness! But 
bureaucracy and autocracy do not create prophets in 
politics. 

And our own President's belated suggestion was a 
sadly appropriate conclusion to the tenderly introduced 
delays and defeats of European diplomatic ethics. The 
representatives of the powers meant well, but they did 
it feebly. To this, exception should very likely be made 
of the German ambassador at Vienna and the German 
Chancellor, who are under the suspicion of having used 
some duplicity. 

Was the Kaiser personally responsible, or was he 
carried along by militant advisers? If his intimate 
friend and counselor. Von Biilow, reflects the Kaiser 
in his recent book "Imperial Germany," it would seem 
probable that the German ruler had been misled by the 
popular fallacy that the possession of the sword would 
make way for the power of intellect and spirit, without 
the use of the sword, and that he saw his error all 
too late. 

LET US PREVENT WAR BY READINESS FOR IT 

Why did pacific effort fail? Simply because the 
machinery of European diplomacy was geared up for 
war negotiations and not for peace. Diplomatic restraint 
was slow because unprepared. Hostile action was speedy 
because diplomacy was adapted to it. 

Our semi-peace advocates have urged upon their 
foolish peace-fellows that Preparation for war is a Pre- 
ventative procedure. That fallacy has at least shown 
its shallowness. 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 137 

It was the readiness of the nations for war that made 
their action so much speedier than the telegraph could 
convey their messages of peace. When I left London on 
Friday there was little public apprehension beyond that 
of conflict between Austria and Servia and gold was 
circulating freely. But in Paris that very day the banks 
were without a twenty-franc piece for distribution. In 
the middle of the same night I was hastily ejected from 
my sleeping berth at Belfort because the Germans had 
already blown up the tracks upon the frontier, and on 
Saturday morning French troops were in preparation 
all about us. On Sunday morning printed plans were 
posted all over Germany, containing detailed plans for 
complete mobilization, and it was learned that French 
troops were on the border of Alsace on Friday night. 

Leaving Germany on the last train on Monday we 
passed from Constance to Cologne through rows of 
German bayonets by day, while reluctant conscripts were 
shot at station platforms before our eyes, and when 
evening came we were in the lurid glare of searchlights 
sweeping the heavens for hostile airships, and that not 
vainly. 

Soldiers, guns, cannons sprang from the ground ! On 
Tuesday we entered the Thames, guided over mines, and 
before we were out of sight of Flushing the advance of 
the German fleet was there, and we reached London, 
which we had left four days ago, to find England at war 
with Germany. 

This readiness for spontaneous action was what pre- 
vented the pacific efforts of diplomacy. And yet, our 
demi-peace friends told us that to prepare for war was 
to induce peace. 



138 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

At this point misunderstanding enters upon the trail 
of a confused and bewildered diplomacy. The Kaiser 
says he pressed the button of mobilization only because 
Russia was arming in his direction. Russia says she 
did not, but only directed a defense toward Austria. The 
Kaiser had not been so informed however, and now it 
is too late. Military action is automatic. Pacification 
enters each time too late. Put it either way you choose; 
every message comes just too late — or — every act is 
taken just too soon. It began that way; Austria did not 
give Servia time enough and thereafter each movement 
was made just about a day too soon. 

AN INSECURE POLITICAL ORDER 

This failure of a perplexed and circuitous diplomacy, 
with its misunderstandings and blunders, is but one 
element in a political order which has now broken down, 
because based on suspicion, pride and human blindness, 
instead of assuming good-will, mutual confidence and 
moral vision. 

Bernhardi's book gives in bald form a picture of that 
political order. He assumes as a postulate, a relationship 
between nations which they would have repudiated, but 
which, in varying degree, they continued to assume. 

The people of these nations do not, or at least did 
not, want war. They only think they do. The Austrian 
Emperor's call to "his people" was feigned and specious. 
The Kaiser's manifesto tried to state facts in such a way 
as not to tell the truth, and it probably succeeded with 
his deluded people. Even Sir Edward Grey hesitated 
to utter the full content of the British people's real 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 139 

thought and will at its best. It bore the veil of diplomacy. 

Europe at this moment has just one hope: That the 
United States may utter a persuasive voice that will call 
the peoples — no, not the peoples — but the blind and head- 
strong leaders of Europe to their senses before they go 
deeper into a conflict that will leave liabilities that cannot 
be computed, without one single asset in sight for any 
nation. 

And, least of all, can we, by taking from our own 
people the necessities of life, aid and abet and prolong 
the carnage, and the suffering by the supplying of either 
goods or gold to the mad contestants, without involving 
our own nation in the most criminal, unnecessary war in 
all the annals of history. 

No vision or voice was there in Europe. Her churches 
were not ready. The poor socialists tried to speak for 
humanity and to protest against being drafted to kill 
their brothers. And it is still possible that revolution 
within the nations may do a holy work. But so far these 
poor voices have been stifled, and no other voice has 
spoken. 

Does the United States of America live for this 
moment? Can we speak in the clear vocabulary of 
politics the word of spiritual persuasion? Can we see 
with ethical lucidity? Have we the courage to refuse 
explicitly to impoverish ourselves to feed the flames of 
war? Have we any message to send in behalf of millions 
of sons, husbands, fathers, who do not know what they 
are killing their brothers for, and whose political leaders 
are equally dumb to speak and blind to discern? 

Let the United States create a new status, something 
that shall be the opposite extreme to "hostility," that shall 



140 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

have more than the negative position of "neutrahty," 
that shall express good-will to all the peoples, and the 
sincere purpose, unveiled by political diplomacy, to 
become the common ground for the establishment of 
both justice and peace among them. Let us create a 
new international status of "reconciliation." 
S. S. Laconia, August 16, 1914. 



Appendix VI 

The Famous Austro- Hungarian Ultimatum to 
Servia and Servia's Reply 



(Inasmuch as this ultimatum of Austria-Hungary may be said 
to have been the real cause of the great European war and has 
great historic significance it is printed here in full, with Servia's 
reply. — Editor. ) 

On March 31, 1909, the Royal Servian Minister in Vienna, on 
the instructions of the Servian Government, made the follow- 
ing statements to the Imperial and Royal Government: 

"Servia recognizes that the fait accompli regarding Bosnia 
has not affected her rights, and consequently she will conform 
to the decisions that the powers will take in conformity with 
Article XXV. of the Treaty of Berlin. At the same time that 
Servia submits to the advice of the powers she undertakes to 
renounce the attitude of protest and opposition which she has 
adopted since October last. She undertakes on the other hand 
to modify the direction of her policy with regard to Austria- 
Hungary and to live in future on good neighborly terms with 
the latter." 

The history of recent years, and in particular the painful 
events of June 28 last, have shown the existence in Servia of 
a subversive movement with the object of detaching a part of 
Austria-Hungary from the monarchy. The movement, which 
had its birth under the eyes of the Servian Government, has 
had consequences on both sides of the Servian frontier in the 
shape of acts of terrorism and a series of outrages and murders. 

Far from carrying out the formal undertakings contained 
in the declaration of March 31, 1909, the Royal Servian Govern- 
ment has done nothing to repress these movements. It has 
permitted the criminal machinations of various societies and 
associations, and has tolerated unrestrained language on the 
part of the press, apologies for the perpetrators of outrages, and 

141 



142 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

the participation of officers and functionaries in subversive agita- 
tion. It has permitted an unwholesome jpropaganda in public 
instruction. In short, it has permitted all the manifestations 
which have incited the Servian population to hatred of the 
monarchy and contempt of its institutions. 

This culpable tolerance of the Roj^al Servian Government 
bad not ceased at the moment when the events of June 28 last 
proved its fatal consequences to the whole world. 

It results from the depositions and confessions of the 
criminal perpetrators of the outrage of Jime 28 that the Sarajevo 
assassinations were hatched in Belgrade, that the arms and 
explosives with which the murderers were provided had been 
given to them by Servian officers and functionaries belonging to 
the Narodna Odbrana, and, finally, that the passage of the 
criminals and their arms into Bosnia was organized and effected 
by the chiefs of the Servian frontier service. 

The above-m.entioned results of the magisterial investiga- 
tion do not permit the Austro-Hungarian Government to pursue 
any longer the attitude of expectant forebearance which it has 
maintained for years in face of the machinations hatched in 
Belgrade and thence propagated in the territory of the 
monarchy. These results, on the contrary, impose on it the 
duty of putting an end to intrigues which form a perpetual 
menace to the tranquillity of the monarchy. 

To achieve this end, the Imperial and Royal Government 
sees itself compelled to dem.and from the Servian Government 
a formal assurance that it condemns this dangerous propaganda 
against the monarchy and the territories belonging to it, and 
that the Royal Servian Government shall no longer permit these 
machinations and this criminal and perverse propaganda. 

In order to give a formal character to this undertaking the 
Royal Servian Government shall publish on the front page of 
its official journal for July 26 the following declaration: 

"The Royal Government of Servia condemns the propaganda 
directed against Austria-Hungary, i. e., the ensemble of tendencies 
of which the final aim is to detach from the Austro-Hungarian 
Monarchy territories belonging to it, and it sincerely deplores 
the fatal consequences of these criminal proceedings. 

"The Royal Government regrets that Servian officers and 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 143 

functionaries participated in the above-mentioned propaganda 
and thus compromised the good, neighborly relations to which 
the Royal Government was solemnly pledged by its declaration 
of March 31, 1909. The Royal Government, which disapproves 
and repudiates all idea of interfering or attempt to interfere 
with the destinies of the inhabitants of any part whatsoever of 
Austria-Hungary, considers it its duty formally to warn officers 
and functionaries, and the whole population of the kingdom, 
that henceforth it will proceed with the utmost rigor against 
persons who may be guilty of such machinations, which it will 
use all its efforts to anticipate and suppress." 

This declaration shall simultaneously be communicated to 
the Royal Army as an order of the day by his Majesty the 
King, and shall be published in the official bulletin of the army. 

The Royai Servian Government further undertakes : 

1. To suppress any publications which incite to hatred and 
contempt of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the general 
tendency of which is directed against its territorial integrity. 

2. To dissolve immediately the society styled Narodna 
Odbrana, to confiscate all its means of propaganda, and to pro- 
ceed in the same manner against other societies and their 
branches in Servia which are addicted to propaganda against the 
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The Royal Government shall 
take the necessary measures to prevent the societies dissolved 
from continuing their activity under another name and form. 

3. To eliminate without delay from public instruction in 
Servia, not only as regards the teaching body, but also as regards 
the methods of instruction, everything that serves or might 
serve to foment the propaganda against Austria-Hungary. 

4. To remove from the military service and from the 
administration in general, all officers and functionaries guilty of 
propaganda against the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, whose 
names and deeds the Austro-Hungarian Government reserves 
to itself the right of communicating to the Royal Government. 

5. To accept the collaboration in Servia of representatives 
of the Austro-Hungarian Government in the suppression of the 
subversive movement directed against the territorial integrity 
of the monarchy. 

6. To take judicial proceedings against accessories to the 



144 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

plot on June 28 who are on Servian territory. Delegates of 
the Austro-Hungarian Government will take part in the investiga- 
tion relating thereto. 

7. To proceed without delay to the arrest of Major Voiija 
Tankositch and of the individual named Milan Ciganovitch, a 
Servian State .employe, who have been compromised by the 
results of the Magisterial inquiry at Sarajevo. 

8. To prevent by effective measures the co-operation of 
the Servian authorities in the illicit traffic in arms and explosives 
across the frontier, to dismiss and punish severely officials of 
the frontier service at Achabatz and Loznica guilty of having 
assisted the perpetrators of the Sarajevo crime by facilitating 
the passage of the frontier for them. 

9. To furnish the Austro-Hungarian Government with 
explanations regarding the unjustifiable utterances of high 
Servian officials, both in Servia and abroad, who, notwithstand- 
ing their official position, did not hesitate after the crime of 
June 28 to express themselves in interviews in terms of hostility 
to the Austro-Hungarian Government ; and finally : 

10. To notify the Austro-Hungarian Government without 
delay of the execution of the measures comprised under the 
preceding heads. 

The Austro-Hungarian Government expects the reply of the 
Servian Government at the latest by six o'clock on Saturday 
evening, the twenty-fifth of July. 

SERVIA'S REPLY 

Servia's reply to the Austrian ultimatum of July 12th was 
issued July 25ih, and embraced the following terms: 

The Royal Servian Government has received the com- 
munication of the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Govern- 
ment of the tenth of this month, and it is persuaded that its 
reply will remove all misunderstandings tending to threaten 
or to prejudice the friendly and neighborly relations between 
the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the Kingdom of Servia. 

The Royal Government is aware that the protests made both 
at the tribune of the National Skupshtina and in the declara- 
tions and the acts of responsible representatives of the State — 
protests which were cut short by the declaration of the Servian 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 145 

Government made on March 18th — have not been renewed toward 
the great neighboring monarchy on any occasion, and that since 
this time, both on the part of the Royal Government which 
have followed on one another, and on the part of their organs, 
no attempt has been made with the purpose of changing the 
political and judicial state of things in this respect. 

The Imperial and Royal Government has made no repre- 
sentations save concerning a scholastic book regarding which 
the Imperial and Royal Government has received an entirely 
satisfactory explanation. Servia has repeatedly given proofs of 
her pacific and moderate policy during the Balkan crisis, and 
it is thanks to Servia and the sacrifice she made exclusively in 
the interest of the peace of Europe that this peace has been 
preserved. The Royal Government cannot be held responsible 
for manifestations of a private nature, such as newspaper 
articles and the peaceful work of societies — manifestations which 
occur in almost all countries as a matter of course, and which, 
as a general rule, escape official control — all the less in that the 
Royal Government, when solving a whole series of questions 
which came up between Servia and Austria-Hungary, has dis- 
played a great readiness to treat (prevenance), and in this way 
succeeded in settling the greater number to the advantage of 
the progress of the two neighboring countries. 

It is for this reason that the Royal Government has been 
painfully surprised by the statements, according to which persons 
of the kingdom of Servia are said to have taken part in the 
preparation of the outrage committed at Serajevo. It expected 
that it would be invited to collaborate in the investigation of 
everything bearing on this crime, and it was ready to prove by 
its actions its entire correctness to take steps against all persons 
with regard to whom communications had been made to it, 
thus acquiescing in the desire of the Imperial and Royal 
Government. 

The Royal Government is disposed to hand over to the courts 
any Servian subject, without regard to his situation and rank, 
for whose complicity in the crime of Serajevo it shall have been 
furnished with proofs, and especially it engages itself to have 
published on ihe front page of the Official Journal of July 
13-26, the following announcement : 



146 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

"The Royal Servian Government condemns all propaganda 
directed against Austria-Hungary, that is to say, all tendencies 
as a whole of which the ultimate object is to detach from the 
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy territories which form part of 
it, and it sincerely deplores the fatal consequence of these 
criminal actions. The Royal Government regrets that Servian 
officers and officials should, according to the com.munication 
of the Imperial and Royal Government, have participated in the 
above-mentioned propaganda, thereby compromising the good 
neighborly relations to which the Royal Government solemnly 
pledged itself by its declaration of the thirty-first of March, 1909. 
The Government, which disapproves and repudiates any idea or 
attempt to interfere in the destinies of the inhabitants of any 
part of Austria-Hungary whatsoever, considers jt its duty 
to utter a formal warning to the officers, the officials, and the 
whole population of the kingdom that henceforth it will proceed 
with the utmost rigor against persons who render themselves 
guilty of such actions, which it will use all its efforts to prevent 
and repress." 

This announcement shall be brought to the cognizance of 
the Royal Army by an order of the day issued in the name of 
his Majesty the King by H. R. H. the Crown Prince Alexander, 
and shall be published in the next official bulletin of the army. 

1. The Royal Government engages itself, furthermore, to 
lay before the next regular meeting of the Skupshtina an amend- 
ment to the press law, punishing in the severest manner incite- 
ments to hate and contempt of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, 
and also all publications of which the general tendency is 
directed against the territorial integrity of the monarchy. It 
undertakes at the forthcoming revision of the Constitution to 
introduce in Article XXII. of the Constitution an amendment 
whereby the above publications may be confiscated, which is at 
present categorically forbidden by the terms of Article XXII. 
of the Constitution. 

2. The Government does not possess any proof, nor does 
the note of the Imperial and Royal Government furnish such, 
that the society Narodna Odbrana and other similar societies 
have up to the present committed any crimJn^l acts of this 
kind through the instrum.;entality of one of their members. 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 147 

Nevertheless, the Royal Government will accept the demand of 
the Im.perial and Royal Government and will dissolve the 
Narodna Odbrana Society and any other society which shall 
agitate against Austria-Hungary. 

3. The Royal Servian Government engages itself to elimi- 
nate without delay for public instruction in Servia everything 
which aids or might aid in fomenting the propaganda against 
Austria-Hungary when the Imperial and Royal Government 
furnishes facts and proofs of this propaganda. 

4. The Royal Government also agrees to remove from the 
military service (all persons) whom the judicial inquiry proves 
to have been guilty of acts directed against the integrity of 
the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, and it expects 
the Imperial and Royal Government to communicate at an 
ulterior date the names and the deeds of these officers and 
officials, for the purposes of the proceedings which will have 
to be taken. 

5. The Royal Government must confess that it is not quite 
clear as to the sense and object of the demands of the Imperial 
and Royal Government that Servia should undertake to accept 
on her territory the collaboration of delegates of the Imperial 
and Royal Government, but it declares that it will admit what- 
ever collaboration which may be in accord with the principles 
of international law and criminal procedure, as well as with 
good neighborly relations. 

6. The Royal Government, as goes without saying, con- 
siders it to be its duty to open an inquiry against all those who 
are, or shall eventually prove to have been, involved in the 
plot of June 28, and who are in Servian territory. As to the 
participation at this investigation of agents of the Austro- 
Hungarian authorities, delegated for this purpose by the 
Imperial and Royal Government, the Royal Government cannot 
accept this demand, for it would be a violation of the Constitu- 
tion and of the law of criminal procedure. Nevertheless, in 
concrete cases it might be found possible to communicate the 
results of the investigation in question to the Austro-Hungarian 
representatives. 

7. On the very evening that the note was handed in the 
Royal Government arrested Major Voiija Tankositch. As for 



148 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

Milan Ciganovitch, who is a subject of the Austro-Hungarian 
Monarchy, and who, until June 15th, was employed as a beginner 
in the administration of the railways, it has not yet been possible 
to arrest him. In view of the ultimate inquiry the Imperial and 
Royal Government is requested to have the goodness to com- 
municate in the usual form, as soon as possible, the presump- 
tions of guilt as well as the eventual proofs of guilt against 
these persons which have been collected up to the present in 
the investigations at Sarajevo. 

8. The Servian Government will strengthen and extend the 
measures taken to prevent the illicit traffic of arms and explosives 
across the frontier. It goes without saying that it will immedi- 
ately order an investigation, and will severely punish the frontier 
officials along the line Schabatz-Losnitza who have been lacking 
in their duties and who allowed the authors of the crime of 
Sarajevo to pass. 

9. The Royal Government will willingly give explanations 
regarding the remarks made in interviews by its officials, both 
in Servia and abroad, after the attempt, and which, according 
to the statement of the Imperial and Royal Government, were 
hostile toward the monarchy, as soon as the Imperial and Royal 
Government has (forwarded) it the passages in question of these 
remarks and as soon as it has shown that the remarks made 
were in reality made by the officials regarding whom the Royal 
Government itself will see about collecting proofs. 

10. The Royal Government will inform the Imperial and 
Royal Government of the execution of the measures comprised 
in the preceding points, in as far as that has not already been 
done by the present note, as soon as each measure has been 
ordered and executed. 

In the event of the Imperial and Royal Government not 
being satisfied with this reply, the Royal Servian Government, 
considering that it is to the common interest not to precipitate 
the solution of this question, is ready, as always, to accept a 
pacific understanding, either by referring this question to the 
decision of The Hague International Tribunal or to the great 
powers which took part in the drawing up of the declaration 
made by the Servian Government on the 18-31, March, 1909. 



Appendix VII 

To Men and Women of Goodwill in the British 
Empire 

A Message from the Religious Society of Friends 



We find ourselves to-day in the midst of what may prove to 
be the fiercest conflict in the history of the human race. 
Whatever may be our view of the processes which have led to 
its inception, we have now to face the fact that war is proceed- 
ing upon a terrific scale and that our own country is involved 
in it. 

We recognize that our Government has made most strenuous 
efforts to preserve peace, and has entered into the war under a 
grave sense of duty to a smaller state towards which we had moral 
and treaty obligations. While, as a Society, we stand firmly to 
the belief that the method of force is no solution of any ques- 
tion, we hold that the present moment is not one for criticism, 
but for devoted service to our nation. 

What is to be the attitude of Christian men and women and 
of all who believe in the brotherhood of humanity? In the 
distress and perplexity of this new situation, many are so 
stunned as scarcely to be able to discern the path of duty. 
In the sight of God we should seek to get back to first principles, 
and to determine on a course of action which shall prove us to 
be worthy citizens of His Kingdom. In making this effort let us 
remember those groups of men and women, in all the other 
nations concerned, who will be animated by a similar spirit, and 
who believe with us that the fundamental unity of men in the 
family of God, is the one enduring reality, even when we are 
forced into an apparent denial of it. 

Although it would be premature to make any pronouncement 
upon many aspects of the situation on which we have no suffi- 
cient data for a reliable judgment, we can, and do, call ourselves 
and you to a consideration of certain principles which may 
safely be enunciated. 

149 



ISO THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

1. — The conditions which have made this catastrophe possible 
must be regarded by us as essentially unchristian. This war spells 
the bankruptcy of much that we too lightly call Christian. No 
nation, no Church, no individual can be wholly exonerated. We 
have all participated to some extent in these conditions. We 
have been content, or too little discontented, with them. If we 
apportion blame, let us not fail first to blame ourselves, and do 
seek the forgiveness of Almighty God. 

2. — In the hour of darkest night it is not for us to lose heart. 
Never was there greater need for men of faith. To many will 
come the temptation to deny God, and to turn away with despair 
from the Christianity which seems to be identified with blood- 
shed on so gigantic a scale. Christ is crucified afresh to-day. If 
some forsake Him and flee, let it be more clear that there are 
others who take their stand with Him, com.e what may. 

3. — This we m.ay do by continuing to show the spirit of love 
to all. For those whose conscience forbids them to take up arms 
there are other ways of serving, and definite plans are already 
being made to enable them to take their full share in helping 
their country at this crisis. In pity and helpfulness towards the 
suffering and stricken in our country we shall all share. If we 
stop at this, "what do we more than others?" Our Master bids us 
pray for and love our enemies. May we be saved from forgetting 
that they too are the children of our Father. May we think of 
them with love and pity. May we banish thoughts of bitterness, 
harsh judgments, the revengeful spirit. To do this is in no 
sense unpatriotic. We may find ourselves the subjects of mis- 
understanding. But our duty is clear — to be courageous in the 
cause of love and in the hate of hate. May we prepare our- 
selves even now for the day when once more we shall stand 
shoulder to shoulder with those with whom we are now at war, 
in seeking to bring in the Kingdom of God. 

4. — It is not too soon to begin to think out the new situation 
which will arise at the close of the war. We are being com- 
pelled to face the fact that the human race has been guilty of a 
gigantic folly. We have built up a culture, a civilization, and 
even a religious life, surpassing in many respects that of any 
previous age, and we have been content to rest it all upon a 
foundation of sand. Such a state of society cannot endure, so 



THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 151 

long as the last word in human afifairs is brute force. Sooner 
or later it was bound to crumble. At the close of this war we 
shall be faced with a stupendous task of reconstruction. In 
some ways it will be rendered supremely difficult by the legacy 
of ill-will, by the destruction of human life, by the tax upon all 
in meeting the barest wants of the millions who will have suf- 
fered through the war. But in other ways it will be easier. 
We shall be able to make a new start and make it all together. 
From this point of view we may even see a ground of comfort 
in the fact that our nation is involved. No country will be in a 
position which will compel others to struggle again to achieve 
the inflated standard of military power existing before the war. 
We shall have an opportunity of reconstructing European culture 
upon the only possible permanent foundation — mutual trust and 
goodwill. Such a reconstruction would not only secure the 
future of European civilization, but would save the world from 
the threatened catastrophe of seeing the great nations of the 
East building their new social order also upon sand, and thus 
turning the thought and wealth needed for their education and 
development into that which could only be a fetter to them- 
selves and a menace to the West. Is it too much to hope for 
that we shall, when this time comes, be able as brethren together 
to lay down far-reaching principles for the future of mankind, 
such as will insure us forever against a repetition of this gigantic 
folly? If this is to be accomplished it will need the united and 
persistent pressure of all who believe in such a future for man- 
kind. There will still be m.ultitudes who can see no good in the 
culture of other nations, and who are unable to believe in any 
genuine brotherhood among those of different races. Already 
those, who think otherwise, must begin to think and plan for such 
a future if the supreme opportunity of the final peace is not to 
be lost, and if we are to be saved from being again sucked down 
into the whirlpool of military aggrandisement and rivalry. In 
time of peace all the nations have been preparing for war. In 
the time of war let all men of goodwill prepare for peace. The 
Christian conscience must be awakened to the magnitude of the 
issues. The great friendly democracies in each country must 
be ready to make their influences felt. Now is the time to speak 
of this thing, to work for it, to pray for it. 



152 THROUGH EUROPE ON THE EVE OF WAR 

5. — If this is to happen it seems to us of vital importance that 
the war should not be carried on in any vindictive spirit, and 
that it should be brought to a close at the earliest possible 
moment. We should have it clearly before our minds from 
the beginning that we are not going into it in order to crush and 
humiliate any nation. The conduct of negotiations has taught 
us the necessity of prompt action in international affairs. Should 
the opportunity offer, we, in this nation, should be ready to act 
with promptitude in demanding that the terms suggested are of 
a kind which it will be possible for all parties to accept, and 
that the negotiations be entered upon in the right spirit. 

6. — We believe in God. Human freewill gives us power to 
hinder the fulfilment of His loving purposes. It also means 
that we may actively co-operate with Him. If it is given to us 
to see something of a glorious possible future, after all the 
desolation and sorrow that lie before us, let us be sure that 
sight has been given us by Him. No day should close without 
our putting up our prayer to Him that He will lead His family 
into a new and better day. At a time when so severe a blow is 
being struck at the great causes of moral, social, and religious 
reform for which so many have struggled, we need to look with 
expectation and confidence to Him, whose cause they are, and 
find a fresh inspiration in the certainty of His victory. 

August 7, 1914. 



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